


don't you know an apparition is a cheap date

by knoxoursavior



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Minor Character Death, Violence, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 12:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16660870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/pseuds/knoxoursavior
Summary: Loosely based on Crimson Peak (2015)Clark has been able to see ghosts since he was eight, just a few days before his Pa died in his sleep. Years later, after having moved to the city with Martha to pursue writing, Clark meets Bruce Wayne, who takes an interest in his work and Clark in particular. Not long after they meet, Bruce asks Clark to marry him and Clark moves into a mansion that has more ghosts than it has people.





	1. i just wanted to be one of those ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> this is the longest fic i've written so far and it was a blast writing it!! crimson peak is one of my favorite movies and superbat is one of my favorite ships so it just seemed very appropriate.
> 
> this is part of dcu bang 2018 so i was lucky enough to be able to collab with artists!!! please check out [sdiosb's art](https://sdiosb-art.tumblr.com/post/180240707646/my-dcubang-piece-for-clqrkkent-s-ridiculously) and [gwenfrankenstien's art!](http://gwenfrankenstien.tumblr.com/post/180243774056/wayne-family-portrait-1886-inspired-by)
> 
> also thank you to [obsessivelyintrigued](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivelyintrigued/pseuds/obsessivelyintrigued) for brainstorming this with me ilu

Clark is lying on his bed, just about to go to sleep. It hasn’t even been five minutes since he blew out the light on his bedside table and tucked himself in, but suddenly there are knocks on his door.  _ Bam-bam-bam.  _ Three times in quick succession. He sits up, half-expecting Ma or Pa to open the door and come in, back early from their trip to the city, but that’s impossible. They’re not due back for three days.

He is eleven-years-old, alone in a creaking, old house, and there is someone knocking on his bedroom door. His first thought is that it’s a ghost. He overheard Mrs. Johnson when she visited last month to ask if they wanted any of the puppies her old Lab just gave birth to. She was nervous all throughout the ten minutes she sat on their sofa, wringing her hands together and nearly spilling her coffee when she deigned to take a sip.

When she was finally going out the door after poorly-made excuses, she paused.

“Have you had your house blessed?” she asked. “Father Thomas is a friend of the family, and I happen to know he doesn’t charge for blessings. I must insist that you consult with him.”

The only response she got was a raised eyebrow from Ma and a pointed, “Good day, Mrs. Johnson.” Clark didn’t think much of it, until now, that is. Suddenly, he can’t help but wonder what she saw or felt that day that made her so twitchy.

But, no. Ma and Pa have always said that there is more to be feared from the living than the dead, no matter how many stories of zombies and ghosts Clark brings home from his trips to the library or his nights sleeping over at Pete’s. Lana tells the scariest story about the well a little ways away from the butcher, says that there’s a kid twenty-something years ago working for the butcher who fell into the well and now he haunts it. Clark was terrified of it until his Pa took him there, looked down into the well himself, and told Clark that if there really was a ghost there, then he would have been pulled into it, wouldn’t he?

So Clark ignores the sinking feeling in his stomach, ignores the way his hair stands on end. He knows he doesn’t have good chances of fighting off an intruder no matter how brave he is, so he grabs one of his heavier schoolbooks from his desk and tiptoes right back to bed. All the lights in the house are closed and before Clark went to bed, he’d already been in his room, rereading the mystery novel Ma and Pa gave him for his birthday. Whoever it was that knocked on his door, they probably don’t know he’s here. They’re probably knocking on all the doors and Clark is fine. He is going to be  _ fine _ and soon, the intruder will give up and he’ll go away and Clark will be able to go to the police.

Except the doorknob turns and the door creaks open ever so slowly, sending Clark’s heart into a frenzy. He clutches his book, knuckles white, eyes trained on the sliver of the hallway he can see behind the door, slowly widening but still so empty. Images flash in his mind one after another—a masked man wielding an axe, a giant black mass looming over him, a headless priest with both arms outstretched, reaching for him.

In the end, reality is so much worse than whatever Clark could have ever imagined, because reality is  _ right there _ coming for him. He hears them before he sees them, raspy voices that feel like they’re whispering straight into Clark’s ears. Even when Clark covers his ears, he can still hear them calling,  _ Clark, Clark, Clark. _

And finally, he sees them—two figures dressed in all black. Clark doesn't have the nerve to look at them for long, but he sees enough to know that they're  _ not right _ . Their mouths are wide open, unmoving despite the whispers in Clark’s ears, and their eyes are hollow, dark as the night. They reach out to him, as if they mean to take him with them. 

And Clark—Clark doesn’t know what to do beyond try to control his breathing and try to hear anything other than his blood rushing in his ears. When he feels cold fingers grasp his shoulder, he doesn't know what to do except scream. He screams and screams until his throat feels like it’s bleeding. He screams until he can’t scream anymore.

When he finally stops, he doesn’t feel the cold anymore, but he doesn’t dare open his eyes. Sleep is a long time coming. 

  
  


Two days later, Ma comes home alone. She sits him down before Clark can even open his mouth to ask her how their trip was, or where dad is, or what she thinks he saw the other night. She tells him Pa died in his sleep the night before.

And Clark—Clark does not know what to do except cry.

  
  


It’s almost like a dam was broken that night.

Lana is pulled out of class one day, and when she comes back, her eyes are red-rimmed and she’s only there to give their teacher an excuse slip and get her things. Her old Nana’s sick with influenza, confined to her bed with no future ahead of her except death. When he and Pete visit, Clark sees a tall, thin figure sitting next to Lana’s Nana, its long, wiry fingers buried in her hair. She dies hours after she says her goodbyes to Lana, much like when Pa died a day after the two figures knocked on Clark’s bedroom door.

Then, when he goes to the city with Pete one summer, there is a small black blob that hangs onto their innkeeper’s neck. It makes Clark worry, because Mrs. Barnaby is pregnant, due for labor within the week. Pete’s uncle who works for a big-time automobile company is supposed to take Pete and Clark on a tour of the city, but Clark makes excuses, finds a way to help out around the inn because he doesn’t want Mrs. Barnaby or her baby to die when they’re only just starting out with their family.

In the end, Clark is the only person with Mrs. Barnaby when her water breaks. He’s the one who runs to get Mr. Barnaby, the one who stays and holds Mrs. Barnaby’s hand while her husband runs to get the doctor. In the end, no one dies. Mrs. Barnaby delivers a healthy baby girl and after that, the black mass that used to hang onto her is nowhere to be found.

Clark learns that Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby’s first child, a small and sickly boy called Georgie, died before he was even a year old, two years before lovely little Grace was conceived, and he realizes that in this case, the black figure wasn’t an omen of death but a loved one, guarding the ones they left behind. There are ghosts choosing to stay, ghosts choosing to come back, and Clark finds that he likes the thought. He likes the thought that if he were to die, he can still look after Ma. 

Still, he wonders, what if Mrs. Barnaby had suffered a miscarriage? Or what if they never thought to have a child again after their son died? How long would Georgie have lingered, unable to rest? Clark despairs to think of the souls that linger, the souls that never know peace.

The afterlife is supposed to be a relief to the dying, a consolation to the ones left behind. Clark doesn’t have to worry if Pa’s alright, if he’s made his way into his next life, because he doesn’t see the shadow of Pa’s broad shoulders anywhere. Other people, the ones being followed by their ghosts—they may not know they’re being haunted, being guarded, but it doesn’t change the fact that they  _ are  _ and that Clark has the ability to help them. So he does.

He helps. 


	2. you thought you could forget

Clark is in the middle of trying to get his hair to cooperate when there’s two knocks on the door. Five minutes early, of course, because as scatter-minded as Lois can get, she’s always early to meetings. After one asshole of a publisher cancelled a meeting with her because she came in just a minute late, she’s made it a point to always arrive earlier than the set time. She really doesn't like giving other people even more ammunition against her. 

“I’ll get it, Ma!”

Clark abandons his hair so he can run to open the door, revealing Lois in a forest green dress and a matching hat, her lips painted a strong, bright red as always. He can’t help the grin that stretches across his lips at the sight of her.

“Your hair looks horrible, Kent,” she says, rolling her eyes as she pushes past him into the threshold. There she goes again, calling Clark by his last name as if they aren’t the best of friends. At least he’s not  _ Kansas  _ today. 

“And you look beautiful as always, Lois,” Clark says. He follows her to the mirror in his room, where she will no doubt fix him however she sees fit.

“I need to look professional, not beautiful,” Lois says, her lips twisting into a frown as she combs her fingers through Clark’s hair. There’s already quite a lot of product in it, an attempt to tame his head of curls. The stickiness of it makes Lois scrunch her nose in disgust.

“You do look professional,” Clark insists, because she does. It’s the way she carries herself, he thinks. She always has her shoulders pulled back, her chin up, as if daring anyone to tell her that she cannot pursue a career in literature, or that she cannot keep turning away suitors because she’s of the right age to marry and could have long been wed and with child. When Clark first met her at their publishing house, he saw her decimate a man with a few choice words after he told her that dresses are meant to be worn with corsets, which Lois definitely did not appreciate. Clark has known from the very start of their friendship that Lois has no need for him to step in and defend her, even though he will always be ready to.

And anyway, Clark sometimes thinks it’s just how she’s built herself to be. She has a military general for a father and a soldier for a younger sister; Lois grew up knowing the importance of exuding competence and respectability. Judging by how her sister barely tries to hide her gender in the military and how their father not only turns a blind eye to this but vocally supports Lucy, Lois also grew up in a family that doesn’t give a damn about what society thinks women should or should not be doing.

“But that doesn’t mean old Mr. Moore won’t expect me to bat my eyelashes at him anyway,” Lois says, huffing under her breath.

Clark sighs. It’s no secret she hates her publisher. Clark keeps saying that she should just look for another one, but Lois can get very bullheaded about some things. He supposes she has it in her head that she could out-stubborn Mr. Moore even though he’s about a hundred-years-old and set in his conservative ways.

Lois narrows her eyes at him. “What, Clark?”

“You know what I think,” Clark says, and judging by the way she tugs hard on Clark’s hair before she lets him go, she does.

“It’s not that easy.” Lois pauses, as if deciding whether or not she wants to argue right now. Then, she shakes herself off, steel coming back into her eyes. “He’s already published two of my novels, which is more than I can say about the other publishers in that I’ve approached.”

“But you have so many other novels he won’t even look at! You are not a fool, Lois. You know just as well as I do that he has never read any of the manuscripts you really want to have published,” Clark says. It feels a little bit like deja vu, at this point. They’ve had this argument so many times already and it always ends with neither of them winning.

Lois massages her temple, no doubt trying to assuage a headache. 

“Let’s not do this today, Clark. I asked you to come with me for support, not to start an argument.”

Clark blanches.

“I know. Sorry,” he says.  _ You deserve better _ , he doesn’t say, because she knows it better than he does, and she doesn’t need to hear it from a man, even if he also is her best friend. 

“If you happen to find a better publisher for me, then by all means, let me know, Clark,” she says, not unkindly. She reaches out to smooth Clark’s collar, a nonverbal truce, and her lips twist into a small smile. “Let’s get going. And just wear a hat, Kansas.”

Clark covers her hand with his, squeezing. “Alright, Lois.”

Their publishing house is a ten-minute walk from Clark’s two-bedroom apartment with Ma, but Lois brought her motor car with her so it turns into a three-minute car ride. Lois drives it herself, so she tells Clark to go on ahead while she parks the vehicle. Clark suspects she’s also going to try to calm down, try to go in with less of an inclination to shout at old Mr. Moore.

Lois feels that it’s time to try and make him read a novel led by one of the female heroines that she favors, which is bound to end in frustration for both her and Mr. Moore. No matter his views, Mr. Moore is still a seventy-year-old man who has a very high risk of having a heart attack. If he really is the best chance Lois has, then it wouldn’t do her good to kill him by accident.

After Clark buys a paper from the newsstand in front of the publishing house, he ducks inside, immediately perking up when he sees a familiar, friendly face.

“Good morning, Betty. Lois is here to see Mr. Moore,” Clark greets, coming up to the receptionist’s desk. He tips his hat and flashes her a smile. It’s best to stay on Betty’s good side when either he or Lois are being avoided by their respective publishers. Anyway, barring every time she’s helped them out, she reminds him too much of Ma for him to not be fond of her.

“Lovely morning, Mr. Kent,” Betty says, smiling right back at him. “Are you also here on business?”

“It’s just Lois today. I’m only here so we can head out to lunch together later,” Clark says. Then, sheepishly, “Besides, you know Mr. Leach isn’t very happy with me right now.”

Betty frowns, probably thinking back to the last time Clark was here. “Oh, darling, I know. He doesn’t like you very much, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown you out like that before.”

Clark knows, but he isn’t really up to talking about it, and thankfully, Lois saves him the trouble by barging into the establishment like a whirlwind. She greets Betty and wastes no time when she’s told that Mr. Moore is already in his office, while Clark has an excuse to wave his newspaper in the air and sit down on the other of the lobby, far away enough from Betty that a conversation would have to be on a less acceptable loudness of voice.

The last time Clark was here, he was showing his publisher his latest novel. It’s a romance loosely based on the baker’s son, who was found in the docks with his throat slit. The police dismissed it as a mugging gone bad, but Clark saw his tall, gangly figure standing in front of the bakery for hours. Instead of following his father around like Clark expected him to, he stood there until a boy dressed in a beautifully tailored suit visited the baker, buying all too many pastries and loaves, acting all too familiar with the baker and his wife.

Clark had to do some digging, but apparently the baker’s son and this boy, Ollie, were in a relationship, but Ollie’s father didn’t appreciate his eldest having a dalliance with another man, so he had the poor boy killed. He was a nice boy, always had a big smile when he was minding the shop, and there was really nothing else Clark could have done except help.

So Clark did a bit more legwork and made enough of a case against Ollie’s father, made sure to leave it on the doorstep of the Commissioner himself, who’s been known to refuse bribes from men far richer. Ollie found out the truth and the ghost stayed by his side as he knelt at the baker’s feet, asking for forgiveness for something he did not do. Only after the baker held out a hand to help Ollie up, after they cried together for the boy they both loved, did the ghost disappear.

In Clark’s version of their story, they find out what Ollie’s father planned to do and they run away together with an envelope of money from Ollie’s sisters and an entire journal full of recipes from the baker. Needless to say, Clark’s publisher did not like his apparent attempt to venture into propaganda. He demanded that Clark either change the baker’s son into a woman, make the story purely a romance across social classes, or if he really wanted to be stubborn, then just change the ending into a tragedy. Then, he kicked Clark out of his office when he couldn’t give an answer right away.

And that leaves Clark with a difficult decision to make. A tragic ending would just be reality, which is exactly what Clark was trying to avoid when he wrote his novel. He wanted to give them a happy ending, even if just in fiction. Still, it would likely be more respectful than making one of them a woman. A week later and Clark still doesn’t know what to do, and perhaps it’s for the best that he’s going to lunch with Lois later.

She’s of course going to vent about Mr. Moore no matter what the man decides, but she’s also going to expect him to talk. Clark has been keeping mum about it, but he’s never been able to keep anything from her for long. Anyway, it’ll be for the better. She’ll no doubt have solid advice for him that he will no doubt follow.

In the meantime, he reads the newspaper and resolutely ignores everyone in his vicinity. He thinks his publisher may have entered because he heard Betty say his name, but Clark has expertly hidden himself behind a broadsheet more than big enough to cover his face.

Lois comes out thirty minutes after she went in to meet with Mr. Moore. There was surprisingly less screaming than he expected, which gave Clark hope that maybe this time, Lois will have broken through Mr. Moore’s hard shell and convinced him to publish her first female-led novel. But the look on her face is telling; Clark is not enough of an optimistic fool to believe that Lois would have her lips pursed and her brows drawn together if things had gone her way.

“Lunch?” he says, because there is no better way to cheer someone up than to indulge in a good plate of roast or a hearty bowl of soup.

Lois doesn’t sigh, but she melts into Clark’s side when he wraps an arm around her shoulders. It’s enough for Clark to know that she needs some comfort right now, and he doesn’t plan to let her down.

  
  


Clark expected lunch to be just the regular affair. Lois was supposed to call Mr. Moore a backwards old man stuck in the 18th century and she was supposed to drink to another novel down the drain. Instead, she tells Clark that she has no plans of ever coming back to that publishing house with another novel and that Mr. Moore could, in her own words, shove his reputation up his ass.

“I thought you were sticking it out with him,” Clark says slowly, cautiously. He doesn’t say anything about her language, used to it after years of being friends with her, but he shoots the waiter passing by an apologetic smile.

“That’s what I intended to do, but he’s given me no choice!” Lois’ plate is suffering very much right now. It would most likely be better for everyone if Lois were not holding two utensils she can use to hurt someone, even if one of them is only a butter knife, so Clark reaches over the table and gently pries the fork and knife from her hands.

She sighs. Her hand shakes when she takes a sip of her wine, but Clark doesn’t say anything. He lets her gather herself while he reaches across the table, continues where she left off on her roast turkey.

“I’ve been a fool,” she says eventually, her brows knitting together. “You were right. I knew he was never going to publish any of the novels I really wanted to publish, but I stayed hoping like a fool.”

“It’s not foolish to hope, Lo,” Clark says, and he hopes his conviction is as plain in his voice as he feels. “Perhaps some would say it is foolish to hope for good from people, but at least you can say that you tried. You should have no trouble turning your back on him now that you know for sure that he never would have budged.”

Clark pushes back Lois’ plate to her side of the table, and he holds her gaze until her lip finally quirks up in some semblance of smile.

“I suppose I should get started on finding yet another publisher,” she says. Then, thoughtfully, as she pours gravy on her potatoes, “Perhaps I’ll submit something to the Atlantic in the meantime.”

“That sounds wonderful, Lois.”

It does. Clark is so happy to hear her say that finally. He just wants her to have what she wants, to be able to churn out novel after novel without the constant roadblock in the form of a publisher who thinks that Lois is a risk.

“Oh, but perhaps we should type it. I didn’t really care what Moore thought of my handwriting but if we’re sending our manuscripts all the way to Boston, then we should try to impress those magazine bigwigs as much as we can, don’t you agree, Clark?”

Clark raises an eyebrow. “We, Lois?”

“Yes, Clark,  _ we,” _ Lois says, rolling her eyes. “I know you haven’t told me much about your last meeting with Leach, but I’ve seen enough of your manuscript to know the kinds of things you might have heard from your own devil of a publisher. They’re never going to publish that, the same way they’re never going to publish a novel about an unwed working woman with no interest in settling down.”

Clark purses his lips. It’s not such a bad idea. He’s only once tried to submit a short story to a magazine and it was when he was a teenager. Back then, his only interest was the ghosts he saw, so of course ghosts were what he wrote about. However, he only received criticism that his stories weren’t scary enough, weren’t thrilling enough, and no matter how much Clark tried to explain that he never intended to make his stories scary, they never understood.

Now, Clark avoids ghosts entirely on paper and writes about the people instead. He writes about the people who they leave behind, the people they used to be. It’s easier than pouring his heart and soul into a story only to have it misunderstood. He doesn’t want a ghost story, just a story with ghosts in it, but people get stuck on the  _ ghosts _ and they don’t get what they expect.

He talked about it with Lois once, and she said that he should find a balance between what people expect and what he wants to do. He should scare them, but leave them with the realization that ghosts are not to be feared. Ghosts are fragments of the past that remain even after being hidden away, avoided, forgotten. Ghosts need to be faced instead of avoided or forced to leave.

Clark still hasn’t been able to come up with a story to write, but perhaps after he figures out what to do with his last manuscript, he could revisit the idea and give it another try.

“Just tell me when, Lois,” he says finally, a fire renewed in his chest.

  
  


Ma works for the Wayne family office. There’s apparently not much of a family left, but there’s still a lot of money and subsidiaries attached to the name—something Ma’s new friends at work wasted no time in telling her when she first started out. She thought she was lucky to land a job in such a big company at her age, but apparently Mr. Wayne is big on giving opportunities to those that need them the most. The office is mostly run by women, people of color, and immigrants, all of whom swear by Mr. Wayne.

Mr. Wayne is apparently the very best of the high society men and nothing at all like what the rumors portray him to be. He doesn’t flirt with any of his employees, doesn’t smell like a walking distillery, doesn’t complain when his employees need to stop working for a while when they have a family emergency. This generosity is most likely what Ma is banking on when she says that she could ask if Lois and Clark could use the typewriters at work to type up their submissions.

Clark is expecting it to fall through, because why would Bruce Wayne care about Lois and him? Unless Mr. Wayne religiously reads Lois’ mysteries or any of the many genres Clark’s dipped his hand into, then he wouldn’t have heard of either of them. He would be allowing the use of his company’s property for something that wouldn’t benefit him at all, and Clark thinks there’s little chance of him being such a good businessman if he grants every little favor his employees ask of him.

So when Ma tells him that he and Lois are coming with her on Friday, he can’t even hide his surprise. They’ll have two typewriters to themselves for a whole morning, while the higher-ups are still busy with morning meetings and the typists’ desks are still blissfully free from new memos to type and reports to correct.

“Wear your best suit,” Ma tells Clark, and she even goes as far to lay it out for him because he apparently cannot be trusted to know which one of his suits is the best one. It turns out to be the right thing to do because Clark would have picked his maroon waistcoat instead of his navy blue, but Clark will never say that out loud.

When Lois visits for another afternoon of agonizing over their manuscripts, she’s ecstatic to hear the news. She’s been thinking for a long while about purchasing a typewriter of her own, but her father has been home ever since he got promoted to a desk job, and he apparently doesn’t like the noise. But by the time that she’s picking up Clark and Ma the next morning, she’s somehow convinced her father to consider giving her the attic of their house to remake into her very own office. It’s far enough from his own office and his bedroom that he won’t hear her clacking away, even in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes, so he’s finally agreed to considering the possibility of a typewriter.

Clark is familiar enough with parents saying they’ll  _ consider _ something to have his doubts, but Lois seems confident enough that General Lane will give in once he sees her typewritten manuscript. Clark thinks of his reaction when Lois hands him a manuscript of hers that is  _ actually  _ legible, and figures that yes, General Lane will have no problem with her purchasing a typewriter. He’ll probably buy it for her himself if only it means he wouldn’t have to read her chicken-scratch ever again. Clark loves Lois, considers her his very best friend in the world even though they’ve only known each other for a little more than a year, but he cannot for the life of him read more than a page of her handwriting without getting a headache.

There are already a couple of people at their desks when Clark, Lois, and Ma arrive. Ma greets all of them one by one and is rewarded with warm smiles and genuine queries on her morning. Clark feels something in his chest unclench; Ma told him she was doing well at work, but it’s different seeing it with his own two eyes. He doesn’t know if Mr. Wayne just has an eye for good people or if it’s a result of a work environment where all the employees are treated with respect and given benefits far better than any other place in town, but Clark finds himself with an ever-growing sense of gratitude and affection for this Mr. Wayne.

“One of the girls is taking time off for her honeymoon and another one is staying with her father at the hospital so we have some free spots,” Ma says. She leads them to the farther side of the room, near a line of doors that Clark assumes open to meeting rooms and personal offices. “This is my desk. You’re sticking close to me while you’re here so you’ll most likely see the bosses when they come in.”

Ah. Well, that would explain why Ma made him wear his best suit.

“What time do they usually arrive?” Clark asks.

“They have a meeting at 10 today, but Mr. Wayne usually comes in an hour early,” Ma says. She deposits her bag into a compartment under her desk and then she comes over to where Lois is, already distracted by the shiny typewriter on her assigned desk. It’s not loaded with paper yet, but she has no problem testing out how it feels when she types out a few words into the air.

There’s still an hour before Mr. Wayne will be here then, which only means Clark has an hour to build up his jitters. He doesn’t do very well with meeting new people, especially if they’re important people. There’s a reason why Lois teases him about being a farm-boy to this day, and it’s not just because of the occasional hints of his accent that he lets show.

Lois is constantly saying that the so-called high society of this city are just snobs and assholes who like to gather every other week so they can gossip about each other and laugh about their poor employees, and Clark does know that it’s true for most of them. He’s been to some of their parties after his more successful novels, and the experience has always been borderline unpleasant.

They’re much more lavish than the simple parties he attended in his hometown, where they would just dance all night, drink cheap wine, laughter filling the same assembly room that they use for town meetings. What Clark thought was his best suit back in Kansas is leagues below the quality they expect at a city party, so he spent a huge portion of his first paycheck on tailored suits beautiful enough that he doesn’t have his publisher sighing at the sight of him anymore. 

Still, Clark doesn’t like schmoozing with  _ important people _ on the off chance they would think about reading his novels and end up being so charmed that they would throw away some of their money at the publishing house. He had to go to exactly one party before he finally met Lois and he spent the latter half of it drinking his way into an excuse to finally go home. The parties after Lois though—they’re spent with Lois’ hand hanging off his arm and him watching her in wonder as she masterfully navigates the world of high society without letting anyone walk all over her. Clark doesn’t know how she does it, but then again, she grew up going to these parties so she’s had years to get used to it. Clark has less than five parties under his belt and no interest in going to more, even though it’s expected of him. 

So, yes, Clark is nervous about meeting Mr. Wayne. He knows Ma says he’s a nice man, nothing like the other people of his status, but Clark also thought his publisher’s wife was nice until he saw her with her friends at a party, so Clark finds it’s better to be wary.

Lois, meanwhile, couldn’t give a damn about Mr. Wayne. Lois didn’t have the best first impression of him; she was young when Mr. Wayne was in his twenties, a different girl on his arm every week, drinking himself into, it seemed, an early grave. He’s since turned into a recluse, only seen at work and for a few precious minutes at gatherings for his own company, which makes him a little better in Lois’ eyes, but not by much. Obviously, she doesn’t like urban elites very much, and Clark understands perfectly.

In the end, Clark gets too distracted by his work. He doesn’t even notice that Mr. Wayne has arrived until he’s right there in front of him.

One moment, Clark is thinking about rewording one particular sentence before he types it, and then the next, there’s a hand shaking his left shoulder and another on his right, pinching at his waist. Ma is calling his name, her tone resigned. It’s clearly not the first time she tried to get his attention.

When he looks up, there’s a man standing in front of his desk—classically handsome, tall and broad in a way that Clark doesn’t really expect from the urban elite. There’s grey in his hair and lines around his eyes that speak of weariness as much as age. At first glance, he looks like the type of man who has lived long enough and seen enough of the world to be hardened, unshakeable but there is the tiniest hint of a smile in the twist of his lips. Clark thinks that if he weren’t so close to him, perhaps he wouldn’t notice the warmth in his eyes. It’s  _ fascinating _ .

“Clark, Mr. Wayne is here,” Ma repeats.

“Mr. Kent, a pleasure,” Mr. Wayne says, while Clark sits there and stares, dumbfounded.

“Oh, dear Lord,” he hears Lois mutter before she’s grabbing his arm and pushing it upwards, where Bruce’s hand is stuck out in front of him— _ oh _ . Of course.

Clark feels himself flushing, but he’s ruined Mr. Wayne’s first impression of him enough for him to listen to his fight-or-flight response to embarrassment.

“Mr. Wayne, I’m so sorry,” he says, finally taking Mr. Wayne’s hand. His handshake is firm but warm, cementing further Clark’s first impression of him.

Mr. Wayne shakes his head, wraps Clark’s hand between both of his and squeezes. “Please, call me Bruce. Mr. Wayne was my father.”

“Oh. Well then please call me Clark,” Clark says.

Bruce lets go of his hand, but then he starts smiling and Clark feels as if his cheeks aren’t just red from humiliating himself anymore.

“Mr. Kent must have been your father then?” Bruce says. And of course he knows to use present perfect tense instead of plain present. He’s either very familiar with Ma’s status as a widow, which would be disturbing, or he knows all of his employees like the back of his hand, which would be quite charming actually.

“Actually, Mr. Kent was my grandfather. Pa always insisted he be called Jonathan,” Clark says, letting himself grin right back.

“Mr. Wayne,” Lois says pointedly. Clark catches her shooting him an equally pointed look before she shakes Bruce’s hand—one, two pumps as usual but a little more white-knuckled than even the worst of the high society men get. Clark would be concerned but Bruce is giving just as much as he’s getting; there is steel in his eyes and a sharpness to his grin to match what is no doubt Lois’ glare.

“Ah. Ms. Lane.” Bruce tilts his head, as if considering her. “I think we’ve met.”

“Yes, we have. And please, do continue calling me Ms. Lane. Lois is what my friends call me,” Lois says, which is stone cold and a hundred-percent Lois. Clark has seen her use the same routine on countless men and women who gasp and take offense while General Lane turns away and hides his smile behind whatever drink he has in his hand.

Bruce, on the other hand, is unruffled. Dare Clark say it, he even looks quite  _ pleased. _

“Of course, Ms. Lane. I would never presume us to be friends,” he says, waving a hand vaguely. “Though I do admit that I find myself curious what kind of novels someone like you would write.”

Lois raises an eyebrow. Clark can almost see the gears in her head turning. She opens her mouth, but Clark pipes up before she can say anything offensive.

“Lois here writes mysteries,” Clark says, and once again, Bruce’s attention is on him. Clark tries very hard not to stumble on his words. “Perhaps you’ve heard of Louis Smith?”

“Yes, actually.” Bruce turns back to Lois, both eyebrows raised in surprise. “My butler gave me one of your novels for my last birthday and it was quite a thrilling read. You’re very good, Ms. Lane.”

“Well,” Lois says, equally surprised, “thank you, Mr. Wayne.”

Clark, seeing an opportunity, reaches up to grip Lois’ elbow and says, “Perhaps you should let Mr. Wayne read your manuscript before you submit it to the Atlantic, Lois. Since he likes your work so much, I mean.”

Lois turns to glare at Clark, which he expected, so he only smiles at her in response.

“The Atlantic, you say? I know the man who runs it—Perry White. No-nonsense kind of man who rose up through the ranks through hard work and sheer will despite what some people would say about him,” Bruce says. “He loves a good mystery himself, actually. We send each other recommendations once in a while.”

Unless he’s saying it just so he could boast about his connections, then Clark is pretty sure that Bruce has just offered to put in a good word for Lois. Or perhaps he’s implied that Lois has a fighting chance at getting published. Then again, this is the city and Bruce Wayne is from high society; it could very well be neither.

But of course, Lois and Clark know about Perry White. The reason why Lois suggested the Atlantic in the first place is because it’s the most progressive magazine in the country, and it’s earned that place largely due to the man in charge of it.

“If you will allow it, Ms. Lane, I would love to read your manuscript. And yours too, Clark. I admit I haven’t read your work before but Alfred, my butler—he says you have a knack for making him cry,” Bruce says, eyes crinkling. 

Clark feels blood rush to his cheeks once again. He doesn’t think he’s ever blushed this much in the span of ten minutes. Not when he was on his first and last date with Lana, and not even when Clark spilled red wine on someone at his first city ball.

“He didn’t cry because of how horrible my writing is, I hope,” Clark jokes, to which Bruce huffs out a laugh. “But please do send your butler my thanks, and I would love to take you up on that.”

“Of course, Clark.” Bruce turns back to Lois, an amicable smile on his face. “Ms. Lane?”

There’s a pause where Lois doesn’t answer, most likely because she’s suspicious of Bruce Wayne. Granted, it seems too good to be true, but an opportunity is an opportunity. There’s nothing Bruce can really do except publish their novels under his own name, but he isn’t exactly a budding author and he must have no want for another source of income.

Besides, Clark finds that he wants to believe in Bruce Wayne. 

Clark squeezes Lois’ elbow. Whether she will take it as an encouragement to agree or only to speak, well—

“You’ll have them at your desk within the week, Mr. Wayne.”

“I look forward to it,” Bruce says. Then, with another smile, this time regretful, “I’m afraid I have paperwork waiting for me. Isn’t that right, Martha?”

There is warmth in Ma’s eyes similar to when Clark tries to get out of buying himself new shirts when he inevitably gets ink all over one of his few decent ones while writing. Somehow, this man only ten years younger than she is brings out the same emotion from her that she reserves for her son, and that’s only another thing for Clark to file away and think about later.

“Always, Mr. Wayne,” she says, which earns a bark of laughter from him.

“I suppose I’ll see you around, Clark, Ms. Lane.”

Bruce inclines his head, and then he’s gone.

Clark turns to Lois, eyebrows raised. “That was good, right?”

“You were eyeing him up!” Lois says in the same whisper-scream she uses when they’re in the corner of a ballroom, talking about the people right in front of them, and they’re trying to be quiet but also trying to be heard over the noise of the party.

“I was not!” Clark says, because he  _ wasn’t _ . He may have been staring a little bit, but he wasn’t  _ eyeing him up _ .

“Yes, you were.” Lois narrows her eyes at him. “At least admit you were charmed, Clark.”

“Of course I was charmed. He’s a charming man,” Clark says. He sits down, pointedly ignoring how Lois is rolling her eyes at him. “We should get back to work.”

“He’s almost twice your age,” Lois hisses, but she does as Clark says and goes back to work.

Clark turns to shoot Ma an apologetic look, only to have her smile at him and shrug, as if to say  _ Lois is right, but I didn’t say anything because you’re my son and I love you. _

Clark does not sigh, and when he goes back to work himself, he certainly doesn’t think about Bruce Wayne.

  
  


Clark and Lois finish typing up their manuscripts in three days. Bruce Wayne doesn’t stop by to chat like he did that first day, but he’s a busy man. Clark actually pays enough attention to his surroundings on the second day to see how large the pile of paperwork is that awaits Bruce when he comes into work. He has to finish those by the time that his meetings start, and those meetings run back-to-back until 3 PM. Then, after that, he gets another round of paperwork to top off his day. He’s supposed to sneak in lunch during his meetings, but Clark’s heard enough from Ma to know that he barely touches the food his employees set out in front of him.

And, yes, now that he’s met Bruce, Ma’s so much more free with her stories of work. Clark now knows that Bruce takes his coffee black, but that after a particularly difficult meeting, he could add up to five spoons of sugar into his cup. Clark knows that Bruce tries to sneak his paperwork home so he has to get his briefcase checked before he clocks off work. Clark also knows that Bruce falls asleep in his office at least once a month, and that the only thing that can wake him up is the sound of his employees collectively scraping their chairs against the floor when the clock strikes five.

Clark now lives with all this knowledge of Bruce’s life that he has no business knowing and no use for at all, so he simply files them away to a corner of his mind. That, of course, leaves him with more time to imagine Bruce reading his novel and hating it.

It’s not such an impossible thought. Society isn’t exactly accepting of homosexuality or anything remotely like it, even though many of the philosophers and artists that they so revere have taken lovers of the same gender. Clark knows of one woman who, much like Lois’ sister now, served in the military as a man, and when she finally retired, moved in with with one of her fellow female soldiers. They now run the best flower shop in town, so of course they provide bouquets and flower arrangements for the rich, and the rich like to talk. They gossip and make jokes as much as they want as long as it’s merely speculation, but no doubt if proof surfaces, their words will turn into poison.

Clark doesn’t want to believe that a man like Bruce Wayne, who goes out of his way to hire people everyone else would turn away before they could even step inside the building, would draw the line at  _ this _ . Still, he’s not that much of a fool. Pa always told him to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, so Clark prepares himself for the considerable chance Bruce won’t like his novel. 

Still, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get nervous. He still wants Bruce to like his work.

He spends his mornings sitting at his desk, pen tapping on wood as he tries and fails to brainstorm ideas for his next work—hopefully, finally his novel about ghosts. Then, in the afternoons, he takes a bucket and a rag and cleans the apartment.

Lois comes to visit on the third day. She hides away his pen and his papers, tells him there’s nothing left to clean, and drags him out of the apartment. They go to the theater to watch a play, and then to a new Italian restaurant for a meal that he doesn’t just push around his plate the entire time. Lois holds his hand and says nothing of Bruce Wayne or writing or even about bakers.

Then, on the fourth day, Ma comes home with Bruce Wayne in tow. Clark almost drops the pie he painstakingly spent all day making to distract himself from—well, from the thought of  _ this _ . 

“Clark, it’s good to see you again,” Bruce says, smiling at Clark even as he helps Ma take her coat off.

Clark wants to run back to the kitchen and secure the pie, but it would be rude to run out on them and if his mother has taught him anything, it’s to always be polite. Instead, Clark scrambles for something to say, desperate not to repeat their first meeting.

“Uh—yes. Good to see you too, Bruce,” he manages, and he supposes that’s a good enough start as any.

“You look great in that apron,” Bruce says, waving a hand at the— _ ah _ . Clark’s wearing Ma’s frilly apron. It’s not really supposed to be embarrassing because it’s only an apron and Clark has worn worse things, except it  _ must be _ because there’s a spark of mirth in Bruce’s eyes that makes blood rush into Clark’s cheeks. Anything remotely like a thought is mixed up in his mind, taken apart and rearranged until all he can think of is Bruce and his little smile.

“You look great in that coat,” Clark counters, and by far, it’s the more accurate of their statements. Bruce’s coat fits him perfectly, no doubt tailored to his body and worth more money than Clark’s yearly royalties.

“Have a seat, Mr. Wayne,” Ma says, deftly taking the pie from Clark’s hold. “I’ll cut up Clark’s pie for us.”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t stay long,” Bruce says. “Alfred’s picking me up in ten minutes.”

Martha levels Bruce with the same look that she gives Clark when he’s being stubborn. Instantly, Bruce blanches, and Clark has to wonder how many times Ma has done this at work, and how many times Bruce thought he could get away with ignoring her until he finally learned his lesson.

“Well, that’s no problem, Mr. Wayne. I’ll box some slices up all nice so they won’t get ruined on your way home,” she says, and it’s obvious in her tone that she’s not taking no for an answer.

“Oh, well, Alfred drives the latest model. It’s a much smoother ride than anything else in the market so I wouldn’t worry,” he says, to which Ma only smiles at him patiently, waiting for an actual answer. He sighs. “Alright, Martha, I’ll take the pie. Thank you.”

When Ma is out of earshot, Clark grins.

“You should have started with that,” he says. He knows it’s always best to agree to whatever Ma says, because she has his best interests at heart. Surely Bruce, who writes her paychecks and whose schedule she knows like the back of her hand, deserves at least half the concern that Clark warrants.

Bruce laughs. “I’ll do better next time.”

Clark doesn’t know what to do with the fact that his silly brain’s first thought is that  _ next time _ consists of Bruce, Ma, and Clark in this creaky two-bedroom apartment. It gets even worse, however, because Bruce helps himself to one end of their threadbare couch and motions for Clark to join him.

Suddenly, it comes crashing down on Clark that Bruce must only be here to give him news about his novel and Lois’. Clark takes a seat on the armchair instead of sitting beside Bruce and hopes that he isn’t letting show how his heart is beating a mile a minute.

Thankfully, Bruce doesn’t let him suffer for long.

“I took the liberty of mailing your novels to Perry,” he starts, and  _ oh _ . That can only mean one thing, can only be a  _ good  _ thing.

Clark sags in relief. It’s a little easier to breathe.

“You liked them?” he asks, just to be sure.

There’s that warmth in Bruce’s eyes again, exactly like what Clark saw when they first met.

“I did,” Bruce says, and this time, Clark audibly sighs.

“Good,” he says. “That’s good. I’m glad you did.”

“That’s not all I came to tell you, though,” Bruce says, and there’s an apology in the twist of his lips that makes Clark’s stomach sink. He doesn’t know what kind of bad news Bruce could be bearing, but he already feels like he won’t like it.

“Clark, are you aware that the reason the Atlantic has been willing to accept novels in addition to short stories for the past few months is because they’re in talks with Wayne Corporation to establish something called the Atlantic Press? Of course, we usually only partner with companies based here in this city, but I figured that a Massachusetts-based company wouldn’t be so bad if it catered to people nationwide.”

No, Clark did not know that. He knew that Wayne Corp involves itself with many other companies, and he knew that the Atlantic announced a call for novels, but not that those two things are connected.

“Since you and Ms. Lane might just be the first two authors under Wayne Publishing, I thought it prudent to start treating you as part of the family,” Bruce continues, and oh, the smile on his face spells trouble. “Clark Kent, you and Ms. Lane are cordially invited to the annual Wayne charity ball next week, Friday at 7:30 PM.”

Ah. There it is. If there’s anything that can ruin Clark’s day, it’s a party.

Bruce reaches over to pat his arm comfortingly. 

“I suggest you wear your best suit, Clark,” he says. 

“You’ve already seen my best suit,” Clark admits. Then, when Bruce raises an eyebrow, “The blue one, remember? When we first met.”

“You did look very handsome in that suit,” Bruce says, which is very nice of him. Clark knows that his best, albeit of high quality, is still simple compared to what a rich man would wear. Bruce purses his lips, considering. “However, it would do you good to have more than one good suit—”

“I have three, actually, but Ma says I look best in blue,” Clark interrupts.

He has a scarlet suit he’s only ever worn twice and a white suit that makes him feel like he’s going to a wedding. Clark thinks he should have just stuck with a plain black suit like he intended to, but the tailor he commissioned insisted he’d be wasting his good looks on something so boring. Clark doesn’t know about his good looks, but he knows that he certainly feels stuffy in white.

“Unfortunately, I’ve never seen you in your other suits so I can’t be the judge of that, but I trust Martha’s judgement well enough.” Bruce leans forward, which immediately has Clark frozen in place, anticipating, waiting for Bruce to do something other than just look at him. And he does, but not like Clark expects. Instead, voice loud enough to carry to the kitchen, he says, “Martha, would you mind writing down Clark’s measurements for me?”

“Of course, Mr. Wayne,” Ma replies cheerfully, while Clark splutters, his slow, addled, distracted brain connecting the dots too slowly for his liking.

Clark clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes at Bruce. “Mr. Wayne, you are not buying me a suit.”

Bruce laughs. “Am I Mr. Wayne now?”

“Well, since you might just be paying me, why not?” Clark says. He doesn’t cross his arms no matter how much he wants to, because it’ll only make him look like a petulant child, something Lois has no problem pointing out to him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Will it make you feel better if I tell you that I do this for all my employees?” Bruce says, raising his hands placatingly. Clark is torn, because there’s still amusement clear in Bruce’s eyes but his voice has gone low enough for Clark to have to fight a shiver.

Clark blinks. “Do you?”

“Well I would, but I think Ms. Lane would sooner burn something I give her than wear it,” Bruce says.

“I could do the same thing,” Clark threatens, to which Bruce merely raises his eyebrows. Clark doesn’t know if Bruce already has him figured out from a few days of interacting with him and reading one of his novels, or if Bruce is only banking on Ma having not raised a boy to waste a perfectly nice gift when it was given with good intentions. And Bruce most likely does have good intentions; it’s his party, he has money to throw around, and Clark has nothing to lose.

“Would you really, Clark?” Bruce asks, even though they both know Clark couldn’t and wouldn’t. 

“Please do not make it too flashy,” Clark says instead of answering directly. Clark has only even seen Bruce in simple black suits, but for all he knows, Bruce could look like a whole different person when he’s at a party. Besides, Clark has seen some very elaborate and gaudy suits in the few parties he’s attended; it’s not such an unbelievable thought.

“You wound me, Clark. I have an impeccable eye for fashion,” Bruce says.

Well, Clark sure hopes so. He’s the one who has to wear the suit in front of a hundred people.

  
  


Clark’s new suit is actually a three-piece suit. It’s blue, brighter than the blue of the suit Clark already owns, much closer to the color of his eyes than to navy. It has a tuxedo jacket, which Ma tells him is very fashionable these days. Lois doesn’t comment on it, partly because she knows very little about fashion besides what her dressmaker says she should wear, and partly because Clark doesn’t tell her that it’s from Bruce.

Clark is going to tell her eventually. Later, after they’ve left the ball and Clark has worn it in front of Bruce once. For now, they hold each other’s hand and brave another party together.

“Have you ever been to a Wayne ball?” Clark asks.

“One, back when Dad wasn’t even a general yet,” Lois says, just as she intercepts a waiter and takes two glasses of champagne for the two of them. Clark gladly accepts his glass, thankful for something to make him seem busy and happy to be here. “Wayne still had three of his children back then, and he was still very much a playboy so Dad warned me off him—as if I would have even thought of it!”

Clark raises an eyebrow. “How many children does he have, exactly?”

Lois sighs.

“I’m telling you now so you know not to bring it up, alright?” she says. Then, she downs her glass of champagne and deftly switches it out with a new one, which she also downs. That’s—telling. No matter how much Lois hates working the room, she doesn’t get fully drunk until after she’s done it. “He  _ had  _ seven children. He had two daughters and five sons, only one of which was biologically his.”

There’s a sinking feeling in Clark’s stomach and a lump forming in his throat, but he has to ask.

“And you keep using the past tense because?”

Lois sighs once again, which makes for two times more than Clark would like.

“Because they’ve all passed away, Clark,” she says. She doesn’t look at him, instead stares at what’s left of her champagne as she runs her finger around the rim of her glass, again and again as if it could distract her from what she’s telling him. “Not at the same time, but it happened one after the other in the span of five years. Wayne was never the same after that. No more bringing home anyone who would throw themselves at him, no more travelling around the world, no more ignoring his company.”

Clark—well, Clark doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t think there’s anything even remotely appropriate to say in response to  _ that _ .

But Lois said that when she attended that one Wayne party, Bruce only had three of his children left.

“His children,” he says slowly, the words bitter on his tongue. “What were their names?”

Lois raises her head then, looks at Clark with unreadable eyes. She opens her mouth, but before she can answer, there’s a commotion by the doorway. Clark can hear the whispers; Bruce is here.

The crowd flocks to him, parts when he makes it clear he’s heading to the center of the room. Clark and Lois get dragged along with the movement of the crowd until Clark finds himself near the middle of the room. There’s still quite a few people between him and Bruce, but Clark’s tall enough that he doesn’t have to work to see what’s going on.

Lucius and Tanya Fox greet Bruce with hugs, and Tamara Fox, who’s sitting at the piano, receives a kiss on the hand from Bruce.

“The man of the hour,” Tanya announces, to which Bruce waves a hand dismissively, his smile self-deprecating.

“Nonsense, Tanya. I’m as much the man of the hour as I am this city’s most eligible bachelor,” Bruce says, “which is to say that I am not.”

“You needn’t be so humble, Bruce,” Tanya says, and there are murmurs of assent around the room. Clark sees Lois wrinkle her nose, and while he would have felt the same—tired of hearing people dance around each other, watching them throw around false platitudes in order to win the favor of someone powerful—he thinks that maybe,  _ maybe _ Bruce isn’t the same as those people.

Bruce shakes his head. “I’ve done nothing more than sign papers, Tanya. You organized this ball and you’re the one who oversees all of the operations of the Martha Wayne Foundation. If anyone should be called the man of the hour—the woman of the hour, I should say—it’s you, Tanya.”

Tanya tries to protest but Lucius reaches to squeeze her hand.

“He’s not wrong, honey,” he says, and slowly, the crowd murmurs their agreement, louder and louder until Tanya finally acquiesces.

“Well, thank you,” she says finally. The grin on her face is wide, happy, and Clark likes to think that she’s happy to receive recognition for doing something so monumental, so important to the city. Clark finds that he likes this more than he likes those long, stuffy speeches that he usually hears.

“But anyway,” Tanya continues, “enough about me. I’m sure you all came here for the dancing just as much as you did for the Martha Wayne Foundation. Bruce?”

“Yes, Tanya?”

“If you wouldn’t mind leading the waltz?”

Bruce smiles.

“Of course,” he says, and then he’s grabbing a candle off of a display and whispering into Tamara’s ear. She smiles, nods, and then she turns back to the piano, hands poised over the keys.

“The waltz is a simple dance. Six basic steps and you’re good,” Bruce starts. Clark can feel the crowd drinking up every word he says, captivated. “However, to say that a waltz is  _ perfect  _ is another thing entirely. It has to be so swift, so delicate, and so smooth that a candle flame will not be extinguished in the hand of the lead dancer. For that, I’d need the perfect partner.”

The people murmur among themselves, speculating, wondering who Bruce Wayne is going to ask, who is going to get the chance to break a years-old streak of Bruce never bringing anyone home.

“He’s looking over in our direction,” Lois says, whispering the words right in Clark’s ear.

Clark knows that, because like the rest of the crowd, his eyes have been glued onto Bruce since he started talking. Bruce’s eyes are dark, piercing, and Clark somehow feels like Bruce is looking at  _ him _ . But that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? Bruce is looking for a dance partner and Clark cannot for the life of him dance without once stepping on his partner’s toes. Lois, despite leading him the best she could, has accepted this as a part of Clark and has taken to wearing military boots to protect herself from Clark’s two left feet.

“You think he’s going to ask you?” Clark asks, because that must be it. Lois and Bruce have done nothing but antagonize each other, which either means Bruce has an odd sense for flirting or he thinks that Lois hating his guts makes her a safe choice.

“He isn’t that much of an idiot,” Lois says, but she doesn’t sound very sure.

Then, Bruce makes his way forward, parting the crowd until he stops right in front of Clark.

“Clark, would you join me in a dance?” he asks, his lips twisting into a small smile that Clark cannot fully appreciate in the face of this—this choice that is barely a choice at all. Clark doesn’t know what Bruce is thinking, doesn’t know what this  _ means _ . He has no idea at all what Bruce could want from him, but he does know that he hasn’t been, in Lois’ words, eyeing Bruce up for nothing. He knows that Bruce is an attractive man, that he’s been nothing but kind. Clark wants to believe that Bruce genuinely wants to dance with him, because he already knows that he wants to dance with Bruce.

“Lois,” Clark says, squeezing her hand much too tightly because he doesn’t know what to do. He only knows what he  _ wants  _ and what he wants is foolish. 

But Lois only smiles him, squeezing right back. 

“Go with him, Clark,” she says. “I’ll save you a dance.  _ Go _ .”

Clark huffs out a laugh. She says that now, but she’ll probably be happy to be rid of his two left feet for a night. Still, he appreciates the thought, so he leans in to press a kiss to her cheek and then he lets Bruce take his hand and guide him to where the crowd has left a space open for the dance.

“I’m still not sure I’m the best choice, Bruce,” Clark says. His smile is weak and he doesn’t quite know what to do with his limbs, which does not bode well for Bruce’s so-called perfect waltz.

“I would not have asked you if I did not think you were the best option,” Bruce replies easily, and it’s enough for Clark to have the strength to ignore how loud the murmurs are.

“I’m not a very good dancer,” he admits. 

“Being a good dancer isn’t a requirement to being a perfect partner,” Bruce says, which is much more cryptic than it is comforting, but it still makes Clark’s heart skip a beat.

Clark has no time to ask what he means because already, Bruce is slipping a hand under his arm, resting on his back, while the other, already holding Clark’s hand, squeezes comfortingly. Clark lets out a shaky breath, lets it linger in the air for a moment as the music starts, and then he finally reaches for Bruce’s left shoulder.

“I’ll take care of you, Clark,” Bruce promises, and Clark believes him. Clark believes that he doesn’t have to worry, and so when Bruce leads him, he has nothing in mind but to follow.

There is no time to think, no space in his mind for anything but the feeling of Bruce’s hand in his, of Bruce’s warmth seeping in through the fabric of Clark’s jacket and shirt where Bruce is holding him. The crowd blurs as they dance. There’s only Bruce, with his small smile that Clark cannot figure out, staring right back at him.

For the span of one song, there is only Bruce and Clark, and Clark finds himself disappointed when the music finally ends. Yet, Bruce’s touch lingers for a moment longer, and that makes Clark feel a little bit better.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Bruce says, just as he slips his hand over Clark’s lower back, urges him to bow for the applauding crowd. Clark does, still breathless, though he isn’t quite sure if it’s from the dancing or from  _ Bruce. _

“I suppose I do only need a perfect partner,” Clark admits. Then, feeling brave, he leans into Bruce’s space, whispers, “I truly did enjoy that though. Thank you, Bruce.”

Clark doesn’t think he imagines Bruce pulling him just a little bit closer.

“Save me another dance, won’t you, Clark?” Bruce says, and who is Clark to refuse?

“Of course,” he says, and he doesn’t take hold of Bruce’s arm when Bruce steps away from him, no matter how much he wants to.

Clark stands there for a moment, watches Bruce as he starts to work the crowd, shaking hands and exchanging greetings. He knows he has to do the same, to sell himself and his works, but he can save that for later. He can take a breather for now.

“So you weren’t eyeing him up?”

And that is Lois, at his side again.

“He bought me this suit,” Clark admits. He might as well; he never could hide anything from Lois. Besides, after that display, Clark finds he does want to talk.

“I knew it!” Lois exclaims, voice rising enough that some people look over at them. Clark supposes it doesn’t help that he’s been put under the spotlight and now everyone must be looking for anything on him.

Clark raises an eyebrow. “Did you really?”

“Well, I knew you didn’t own a suit like that, and I didn’t think you would have spent your savings on yet another suit. Close enough, I think,” Lois says. Then, she pauses, considering. She reaches over to hook her hand around his arm and asks, “Do you like him, Clark?”

Clark lets out a breath—not quite a sigh, but much more an excuse to think.

“I don’t know,” he says, but that’s not right, is it? He knows, but he doesn’t know  _ why _ when he barely knows Bruce Wayne.

“I want to know him better,” he concludes, and that’s better. “I want to spend hours with him, walking in a park, chatting about everything and nothing. I want to have tea with him and find out what pastries he likes to eat so I can ask Ma to teach me how to make them. I want to know how he looks when he’s forgotten all his troubles.”

Somehow, right now, there is very little doubt in Clark that these are things he could do, things he could have if only he’d ask. He only needs to remember Bruce’s eyes on his, Bruce’s hand in his, and he thinks— _ yes _ . Yes, this is something that he wants, and this is something that Bruce very likely wants as well.

Lois leans into him, and Clark thinks that if they weren’t in the middle of a ballroom, Lois would be hugging him.

“Promise me you’ll tell me if you think you’re going to get your heart broken?” she says, tries to mask the emotion behind it by dragging Clark to the buffet table.

“Of course,” he says, and Clark truly does love Lois so much. She hasn’t been his friend for very long, but he has no doubt she’ll be here for a long time and that she’ll never leave his side. Unless she somehow gets sick of him, which Clark tries very hard to avoid.

Clark and Lois fall back into the familiar pattern of marketing themselves. They introduce themselves, chat a little bit, build each other up when the subject of their work comes up, and then they move on to find another gaggle of people to impress. The entire time, the thought of Bruce is tucked away into a corner of Clark’s mind where it can’t distract him. Clark tries not to look for Bruce in the crowd, no matter how much he wants to. He thinks it would be pleasant to meet Bruce’s eyes across the crowded room, to share with a smile that’s just theirs, but Clark can’t bring himself to try.

Instead, he waits. He makes his way around the room and he waits. He lets Lois drag him to the middle of the room for a dance, and still, he waits.

Finally, after three songs with Lois, Bruce steps in. His hair is sticking out a little where he’s no doubt run his hand through it, but otherwise, he looks just as put-together as he did when he first came in. He’s barely even red in the cheeks; Clark wonders if he hasn’t been drinking tonight or if he’s just good at holding his alcohol.

“Clark, Ms. Lane,” he greets, slipping an arm around Clark’s waist. “Having fun without me?”

“Perfect timing, Mr. Wayne,” Lois says, an innocently pleasant smile on her face. “Come and dance with me.”

Clark raises an eyebrow at her, which she of course ignores. He would have thought she’d much sooner throw away the opportunity Bruce has given them rather than willingly dance with him. 

“I’m afraid I was planning to ask Clark for my last dance of the night, Ms. Lane,” Bruce says, and if he’s as surprised as Clark, he doesn’t show it. 

“One dance, Mr. Wayne,” Lois insists. “Besides, Clark must be tired already.”

Bruce opens his mouth, only to close it again. He turns to Clark, eyebrows raised. “Clark?”

Clark has a niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that Lois means to talk to Bruce about—well, not about their careers, that’s for sure. Still, it’s better to get it over now; if Bruce gets scared off by Lois, then perhaps he isn’t worth Clark’s time after all.

And Clark isn’t quite tired, but he’ll be happy to get away from the crowd, he thinks.

“Go dance with Lois, Bruce. I’m going to get a bit of air out on the balcony,” Clark says. 

Before he goes, he pauses, lingers, wars with himself because he feels like he has to make sure that Bruce knows what he wants. Besides, Bruce is slowly starting to look like he’s realizing he’s being thrown to the wolves; he’ll need the reassurance. So Clark closes the space between them, presses a quick kiss onto Bruce’s cheek, says, “I’ll be waiting for you, alright?”

Then, he turns and walks away, cheeks warm, doesn’t think at all about Bruce’s reaction because he hasn’t actually  _ seen  _ it.

Clark slips out onto the balcony, thankfully empty, and he immediately makes for the edge. He grips the balustrade, leans against it, and breathes, deep and long. The city’s bustling underneath him, people walking down the street, bells ringing as doors open, motor cars and a handful of carriages still on the road. It isn’t unusual for a Friday night at the end of the month, when pockets are full of hard-earned money and people want nothing more than to spend a night free of responsibilities.

It’s very much different from a Friday night back in Kansas, though Clark supposes living in a farm with their nearest neighbor situated miles away makes for a quiet night no matter what. After Pa died, it only got worse. They tried their best, him and Ma, but in the end, they weren’t the farmer that Pa was. Pa had Kansas in his blood, born and raised to live his entire life tending to the Kent farm, but Ma came from the city. She met Pa when she came to Kansas with a friend, fell in love, and stayed. And Clark—well, Pa died before he could teach Clark anything more than how to feed the animals every morning.

They tried their best, but it was really no surprise when eventually, they had to give up the farm and move to the city. It was hard, letting go of their last tangible tie to Pa, but it was also freeing in a way, like they finally understood what it meant to move on.

And Clark loves this city. He loves the people, all the stories untold. It feels sometimes as if every turn he takes leads him somewhere unknown, and isn’t that the best thing a writer could ever hope for?

Suddenly, the hair on Clark’s nape stands on end. There’s someone here with him.

“Who’s there?” he asks, voice low. He doesn’t move, doesn’t turn, only keeps his white-knuckled grip on the balustrade and listens past the beating of his heart, loud in his ears.

He barely makes out a whisper, unintelligible, and then there’s a hand gripping his right shoulder—cold and tight and  _ cold _ . Clark cannot stop himself from shivering, cannot stop himself from wishing this would end because this is the first time that a ghost has actually touched him in years and he finds that he does not like it one bit. It’s magnitudes worse than anything he’s ever felt before, feels like someone has reached under his skin and turned his insides into ice. The cold spreads, takes over his body until it is all Clark can feel.

The cold is numbing, enough that Clark isn’t entirely sure that he’s not just imagining the puffs of ice-cold air onto his ear. But he doesn’t have to wonder long, because soon there’s a voice to go along with the breaths. 

“Clark,” it says. “Clark.”

And Clark knows that voice. He hasn’t heard it in years, but he  _ knows _ it. Every drop of fear, of hesitation is forgotten. Clark spins, eyes wide—

“Pa?” he calls, but there isn’t anyone behind him.

Clark—wants to weep. He missed his chance. In all his years of seeing the dead, he has never seen Pa; he has never seen the one person he wishes to see, to talk to the most. He comforted himself with the thought that not seeing Pa meant that Pa has moved on, that his soul is at rest, but Clark has always wished, in the deepest, darkest corner of his heart, for one last chance to talk to Pa. 

“Pa,” he repeats, hoping, wishing.  _ Please _ . His heart constricts in his chest and his eyes burn and his hands curl into fists, but still, no one answers.

Clark’s knees buckle, and he falls to the ground, tired and defeated.

“Clark? Clark! What happened, Clark?”

There is a hand slipping under his jaw, fingers ghosting over his cheek, and there is Bruce looking right at him, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set in a firm line. Bruce is here, solid and real and  _ alive _ , an anchor in the middle of a raging sea.

“Bruce,” Clark says, murmurs like a prayer. He finds Bruce’s arm and latches onto it. If he’s holding on too tightly, Bruce doesn’t say so.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asks.

Clark wants to say yes, wants to reassure Bruce, to smooth out the worried crease between his eyebrows, but he’s—he  _ isn’t _ .

Clark wants to close his eyes and sleep, forget. He wants to go back home to Ma, hold her in his arms just to know that she’s still here and alive and breathing. He wants to hold Bruce’s hand, wants to feel  _ warmth _ .

Clark can only do one of those things, and so he does. 

Bruce’s hand is warm on his cheek, and Clark covers it with his own and holds on tight.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m feeling well enough for another dance,” he says.

Bruce lets out a shaky breath, and then he smiles, small, but it eases some of the pain in Clark’s chest anyway.

“You’ll owe me one then,” he says, and then he leans in, holds Clark close for a few precious moments before he pulls away, squeezing where he’s holding Clark’s waist. “Let’s get you home for now.”

Clark blinks, and his head clears enough for him to remember who he’s supposed to be going home with.

“I—yes. Where’s Lois?” he says, peering behind Bruce at the sliver of the party visible through the balcony curtains. 

“Ms. Lane is inside, but Clark, listen to me.” Bruce gently tugs Clark back, and Clark lets him, leaning into Bruce’s touch, meeting his eyes. “Let me take you home.”

“Oh Bruce, you don’t have to. Lois has a car, and she won’t mind leaving a little earlier anyway,” Clark says. He’s quite sure Lois would thank him for giving her an excuse to leave, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “I’ll be fine, Bruce.”

It isn’t a lie. Not exactly. It still tastes like one right now while his head is swimming, trying to piece together a puzzle that he doesn’t know the solution to. 

“Clark,” Bruce says, voice soft to match the look in his eyes. “I insist.”

Clark purses his lips. He knows himself, and this is the most shaken he’s been after seeing a ghost since that first night, all of eleven-years-old with no idea what it really meant until Ma finally came home, alone and already grieving.

“Are you certain?” he asks.

“Yes,” Bruce says, not even a hint of hesitation in his tone. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I know that the best I can do to help is to  see to it that you get home safely to your mother, so please—let me take you home.”

Clark doesn’t really have any reason to refuse. And—and he thinks that perhaps he’d like it. Going home with Bruce, who’s warm and  _ here _ , so obviously concerned about him.

“You’re already helping,” he assures, because Bruce is. It helps, knowing that Bruce sees him, that Bruce is touching him.

Clark holds Bruce’s hand the whole ride home. He finds out that if he bends down just a little, he fits right under Bruce’s arm and into his side. He almost falls asleep, and even as Bruce helps him out of the car and up the single flight of steps to his apartment, he can feel the heaviness of his eyelids, the weight of exhaustion settling in his bones.

But when he sees Ma waiting in the living room, shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a book in hand, Clark  _ crashes.  _ His knees buckling underneath him, his eyes prickling, with Bruce the only one keeping him upright, Clark watches Ma come to him, her eyebrows furrowed, and he lets Ma wrap her arms around him.

“I’ll leave him to you,” Bruce murmurs. 

When he starts to pull away, Clark manages to hang on a little longer. He opens his mouth, but all that wants to come out of it is a whimper he barely chokes down. Clark holds on tighter, hopes that Bruce can see everything he means to say anyway.

“I’ll see you when you’re feeling better,” Bruce says, and then he presses a feather-light kiss to Clark’s temple, a goodbye and a promise and a reassurance all in one little gesture.

Inevitably, Bruce turns away, turns to Ma.

“Thank you, Bruce,” Ma says.  _ Bruce _ , she says, and any other day, Clark would smile at it, would tease Bruce about it. Not today, it seems.

Bruce looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, but in the end he pulls himself together and nods.

When Bruce finally leaves, Clark breaks.

“I saw Pa,” he says, and that alone makes Ma’s eyes widen. “He was calling me but—but he disappeared before he could say what he needed to say.”

Ma’s hands are shaking when she takes Clark’s in hers.

“Oh, Clark,” she says, heartache and grief and pain all in one breath.

Ma pulls Clark to the couch, gently coaxing him until he’s splayed over it, head in Ma’s lap and face hidden in her nightgown. He clings to her and he welcomes it when she bends over him and runs her fingers through his hair. He welcomes it when she brushes tears away from his cheeks, when she tucks stray hairs wet with tears behind his ear.

Ma is Clark’s rock, his most important person, and it was very much the same way for Pa. Now—now he realizes—

Who else would Pa have come back for if not Ma?

Clark didn’t realize it at the time, but he eventually figured out it was his grandparents who visited him before Pa died. For the first time in a long while, he hates his ability, abhors it. He wonders what the point is of the dead warning him when he can’t do anything to stop death or tragedy or suffering from reaching the living. 

And believe him, Clark has tried. Those first few years with this ability, he tried again and again until he couldn’t anymore. He tried until he figured out that thinking he could change things would only break his heart, that the only thing he could truly do was pick up the pieces. 

He doesn’t know if he can do that when it’s Ma’s life on the line. He doesn’t know if he can just  _ accept  _ it, doesn’t know what he’ll do without her, can’t imagine a life without her. Clark loves Pa, still thinks of Pa to this day, but Ma has been there for Clark all his life. She believed him when he told her about his ability, supported him when he told her he wanted to be a writer even though they were barely scraping by, uprooted her life in Kansas when he told her he had an opportunity to write for a living in the city. Ma has been selflessly loving Clark all these years, has adjusted and rearranged her life so he could live his dreams.

And now—now, her life might just be at its end. There’s a clock over her head ticking down to zero and Clark has no idea how much time is left except for  _ not much. _

Then again, it could also mean that something’s about to happen to  _ Clark _ , but—well. He would hate to leave Ma by herself, would hate to break her heart once again, but he thinks he’d rather be the one with his life cut short than Ma.

Maybe that’s selfish, but when it comes to family, Clark thinks he’s allowed to be selfish. 

  
  


No one can blame Clark for sticking close to Ma after that.

The whole weekend, they spend together. They bake, they read, they talk, but they don’t talk about what might happen. They don’t talk about it until they  _ do _ . 

“If it’s me,” Ma says, “Clark—”

“Ma.” Clark puts down his spoon, hard enough that his soup splashes all over the table. He looks up at her, pleading, “Don’t. Please don’t.”

But he recognizes that look in Ma’s eyes. He knows when she’s standing her ground, when she’s immovable.

“We have to talk about this, Clark.”

_ No,  _ Clark wants to say. No they don’t _.  _ He already knows what will happen. He knows he will cry and he knows he will spend the rest of his life looking for even a hint of Ma’s ghost and the other half beating himself up for wishing it of Ma’s soul. He knows because that’s what happened with  _ Pa.  _

But—

But this is their goodbye, isn’t it? It might as well be.

And isn’t that sad? Closure, the chance to say goodbye—that’s what Clark has been trying to give other people all these years. It’s the best he can do, but now that he’s in their position, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

“Alright,” he says. This is all he has left and he will take it. 

Ma sighs, long and deep and shaky. Then, “If it’s me, promise me you’ll take care of yourself. You’ll keep writing and you’ll keep using your ability to help others. You’ll let Lois take care of you. Bruce, even.”

“I will,” Clark promises. If that’s what Ma wants then it’s what he’ll do. Anything so that she’s at peace.

“And—” Ma pauses, seems to choke on her words before she continues. “And if it’s you, I want you to promise you’ll move on.”

_ No _ , Clark wants to say. But that would make him a hypocrite, wouldn’t it? He would ask Ma to move on too, to find Pa again and rest with him.

“I will. I promise,” Clark says, and he doesn’t need to ask Ma to promise the same because he  _ knows _ . Because she knows him better than anyone else in this world, because he trusts her.

On Monday, he walks her to work. He holds onto her too tightly, goes out of his way to help her with the smallest things. Ma lets him, but she doesn’t let him get away with it.

She pauses in front of the Wayne family office after Clark hugs her goodbye, holds his hands with a grip that doesn’t allow Clark to forget that she’s still here, alive.

“Fear is Death’s champion, Clark,” she says. “We already know what might happen. Being afraid will only make it come faster.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Clark says, pleads, prays.

“You will,” Ma says, not unkindly. “I don’t want to tell you how to grieve, Clark, but at least save it for after I’ve passed.”

Clark knows what she means, knows that she’s right. It’s useless trying so hard to shield her from the rest of the world when there’s nothing he can do against the divine. Clark  _ knows  _ that. He does, but it’s all he has left. He’s already promised he’ll move on, and now she’s asking even more of him.

Clark knows it’s selfish to want so much, but it’s also human, just as it’s human to love and to cry and to long for more time, more choices—just  _ more _ . But it’s also human to want to please, to want to make someone he loves happy, and so Clark will try. He will make his promises and he will try his very best and nothing less.

So Clark nods and he lets her go.

“I’ll see you at home,” he says, just like he does every morning.

“Straight after work,” she promises.

“Love you, Ma,” Clark says, his last hurrah, his only consolation. They don’t usually say it because they  _ know _ , but now he wants her to hear it, wants her to be sure of it.

Ma’s eyes soften and she squeezes where she’s holding his hands. “I love you too, son,” she says, and Clark knows this, but it still feels like the chains around his heart have loosened just a little bit.

After that, Clark goes home to find Lois on the steps up to the apartment, basket in hand and poorly hidden concern in the twist of her mouth. She brought brunch made by the Lane household cook, to whom Clark attributes his newfound love of South Asian food. It’s one way to cheer him up, he supposes, and he lets it wash over him, lets Lois waltz into his day and raise him up because it’s what Ma would have wanted.

Lois tries to ask him what happened the other night, but—well. She doesn’t know that Clark can see ghosts, only knows that Clark is interested in them, wants to write a story about them. And it isn’t that Clark doesn’t trust her, but Lois is bullheaded and logical, a combination that is perfect for the mysteries she writes. She’s grounded in reality, a believer of science. She’s not at all sensitive to ghosts, and Clark knows because there’s a ghost lingering in her house that Clark doesn’t recognize. It stays in the kitchen, banging pots and flickering lights that Lois always explains away with rats and faulty wiring. The cook sees the ghost too, Clark thinks, but he never talks about it, just like Clark never talks about it either.

Eventually, Lois digresses, and then she moves onto another topic she knows will ruffle Clark’s feathers whether he likes it or not. 

“So,” she starts, “you and Mr. Wayne were very close at the party, weren’t you?”

Clark groans, already dreading this conversation. Better than the alternative, but still horrible for him. 

“Lo, stop.”

“I had no idea that silver fox was your type, Kansas,” she says, eyebrow raised in a perfect, mocking arc.

“He’s very charming,” Clark grumbles, which he immediately realizes is the wrong thing to say when Lois’ grin takes on a sharp quality.

“Quite,” Lois agrees, which is more than she’d say about every other high society man in the city.

Clark rolls his eyes. “Nothing happened much anyway. We danced, that’s all. And I believe you stole his last dance from me.”

Lois hums in that way of hers that means she isn’t really listening to what he’s saying, nor does she particularly care. Clark tries not to feel offended. 

“You know what he said to me during our dance though?” she says, and  _ oh _ . Clark hasn’t really thought about that. In the midst of—of everything, he thinks he can be forgiven for subconsciously filing Lois and Bruce’s five or so minutes together as unimportant.

“I don’t even know what  _ you _ said to  _ him _ ,” he says, eyes narrowing. Lois looks much too pleased with herself, which can only ever mean trouble. 

“I just told him that writing murder mystery novels for a living means I know many ways to kill a man, not to mention how to dispose of a body,” Lois says, nonchalant, innocent, as if she hasn’t just told Clark that she threatened Bruce Wayne.

“Lois! You did  _ not. _ ”

Clark lets out a garbled groan because  _ yes _ , this is Lois Lane, the same woman who publicly challenged a wannabe Jack-the-Ripper serial killer at the age of nineteen, figured out his identity, and weaved the whole thing into a novel she’s still profiting from to this day. Bruce Wayne has to be a piece of cake compared to that, he thinks. 

“Oh, stop it,” Lois says, swatting at Clark’s arm. “I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”

“Good Lord, Lois. What else could you have said to him?” he asks, because he really, truly doesn’t know what could be worse than a death threat. Lois has never gone past death threats before, doesn’t even usually go for those when a good old threat to kick someone’s balls does the trick.

“Why do you assume the worst of me?” Lois says, as if the answer isn’t obvious. Then, “No, the best part was he said he’s read all of my novels and that he’d like to see me try.”

Clark’s eyebrows furrow. “What does that  _ mean _ ?”

Lois throws her hands up. “Exactly! Was he challenging me? Was he saying that he’d welcome my gutting him if he hurt you?”

Clark scrunches his nose, thinks of Bruce and Lois, antagonism and an odd, detached sort of fondness that only they can pull off. 

“Perhaps both?” Clark says, but then he shakes himself off. It doesn’t matter. “Well, whichever it really is, you didn’t have to threaten him in the first place.”

“Yes, I did,” Lois says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the couch, eyes skyward. Clark can almost imagine a dark cloud over her head, rumbling.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and his worry only doubles when Lois sighs, deep.

“I told you about his children, didn’t I?” she says. She still doesn’t look at Clark. “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a pattern. Well—imagine what seven would be.”

“Lois—” Clark cuts himself off, rearranges his thoughts in his mind until he doesn’t feel like they’re  _ wrong wrong wrong _ . In the end, he can only choke out, “That’s a horrible thing to say, Lois.”

“I know. I  _ know _ , but people get scared easily and they say a lot of stupid things,” Lois says. “There was a criminal who called himself the Joker. Nobody to this day knows why, but he had it in for Wayne. He’s the one who killed all of Wayne’s children. He’d kidnap them, and then he would lead Wayne around the city on some kind of sick treasure hunt, but it would always be too late when they found the children.”

Clark is almost too afraid to ask his next question, but he has to. He has to know if all those children got the justice they deserved.

“And this man, this Joker,” he says, “they caught him eventually?”

“Eventually,” Lois says, but Clark can tell there’s more. “They caught him after he’d already killed four of his children. Then the Joker got out and he—well. He finished what he started.”

“Oh, Bruce,” Clark says. “That poor man.”

Clark doesn’t know how Bruce can still smile, can still live after losing so much in such a cruel, terrible way, but he does and it’s amazing. Admirable. Clark wants to pull Bruce apart and learn him, delve into those years between the Bruce Wayne of Lois’ teenage years and the Bruce that Clark knows now, who dances like it’s what he was born to do, who holds Clark when he needs to be held, who smiles so softly at Clark that it feels like the gentle light of a full moon shining upon him.

“I used to think he was garbage just like every other man in this city. His children were very well-behaved compared to him, though I thought that was because of his butler—the British sort, you know? Very proper, and a military man to boot, but no.” Lois reaches over to hold Clark’s hand, twisting their fingers together the way same way she would when they’re standing outside the publishing house, hurting after another rejection. “He’s a good man, Clark, but I just don’t want you to go in blind.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” Clark says, because it doesn’t. Not anything important anyway.

Clark can only imagine what it must have been like for Bruce. Lois didn’t have to say it outright; Clark got the impression from the first thing she told him.  _ Once is chance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a pattern.  _ Seven times must be a curse. No matter how rich Bruce Wayne is, or how eligible he is as a bachelor, it must be negated by having a criminal obsessed with him.

It must have been very lonely, Clark thinks.

“Oh, Kansas. I have no doubt about that,” Lois says, her tone as indecipherable as her words.

Lois drops the subject then, starts talking about ideas for her next novel instead. Brainstorming sessions with Lois are usually long-winded, bringing about splitting headaches that they both can’t bring themselves to regret on their best days.

Today is a good day for Lois. She outlines an ambitious novel that Clark has no doubt will turn out as riveting and intricate as the rest of her novels, and Clark welcomes it. He offers his critique, offers his suggestions that Lois either accepts or rejects on the spot because she’s the type of writer who knows what she wants.

Clark is different. He usually has an outline, a set of milestones that he has to accomplish, but he allows himself to be flexible, adaptable. He writes emotions, writes the progression and the regression of a person’s relationships, their state of mind, their treatment of themselves and people around them. Whenever it’s his turn to talk about his novels with Lois, he thinks he frustrates her with how he much tends to come up with things on the fly, how he works around plot holes she finds through sheer will alone.

They have different styles, different genres; it’s only to be expected that they tackle writing in different ways. But that’s fine. They balance each other out.

By the time that the afternoon comes around, they’ve gone through Lois’ outline twice. They’re having coffee and cake in the kitchen, hunched over Lois’ notes on the counter, and Clark isn’t even thinking about Bruce or Ma anymore, fully engrossed in his conversation with Lois.

But then Ma walks in with Bruce in tow and he’s reminded once again that there’s more than just this little bubble of imagined worlds that Lois has managed to drag him into. He thinks, for moment, that maybe Ma asked Lois to look after Clark, but no. Lois would have said, because Lois likes to be blunt about these things. She’s had to do it before, and she never had any compunctions telling Clark what she was doing.

“We bought some muffins from the bakery on the way home,” Ma says. “Do you mind if Bruce joins you for tea while I make dinner?”

“You aren’t joining us?” Clark asks, disappointed. Ma doesn’t always, especially when she has big plans for dinner. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but still.

“Bruce also bought duck for us so I have to get started right away,” Ma says, raising an eyebrow at Clark, as if he has anything to do with her boss suddenly going out of his way to buy them food.

Well. Perhaps.

Clark pointedly does not look at Bruce _ at all _ .

“I’ll help you, Martha,” Lois says, already gathering her papers and putting them away in her bag.

Martha and Clark exchange a look that Lois definitely sees and ignores. Lois isn’t exactly proficient in the kitchen. She’s been known to leave things in the pan for too long and she can’t be trusted to watch anything baking or stewing either. Clark thinks it’s because she’s never had the motivation to learn, if not because of the Lane family cook, then out of spite, so she wouldn’t have another thing to add to her list of why she’d be a great wife, right below  _ rich  _ and  _ of age _ .

But she can at least chop vegetables decently enough, as long as Ma watches her closely. Besides, no one can stop Lois once she’s gotten an idea in her head. Now that she’s said her piece about Bruce, she must think it’s alright to trust Clark to decide for himself.

“If you’re certain,” Ma says, but Lois is already washing her hands and putting on the extra apron that Clark usually wears when he helps Ma out. Resigned, she turns to Clark. “I’ll leave Bruce to you, then?”

“I’ll take care of him,” Clark promises, already standing up and leading the way to the living room, grabbing fresh cups of tea for him and Bruce on the way. He looks over his shoulder at Bruce, smiles, says, “Best not to bother them. Come.”

Best not to be in the vicinity of the kitchen when Lois is there perhaps, but Clark isn’t going to delve into that with Bruce today.

“I apologize if I visited on short notice,” Bruce says. “You needn’t entertain me if you want to be with your mother.”

Clark turns around then, eyebrows furrowed. “Pardon?”

Bruce almost runs into him, but freezes just a few inches away. “I—Martha mentioned that you’re worried about her. Because she’s been under the weather lately, she says.”

“Oh.” Clark blinks. That’s one way to explain it. “Yes, I suppose she’s gotten a bit tired of me hovering.”

“I can’t imagine,” Bruce says, and it should feel like a line, shouldn’t it? But Bruce’s eyes are soft and he sounds a little bit breathless beyond the teasing lilt to his voice.

But then Bruce’s eyes widen and his jaw clenches, and Clark realizes he hasn’t replied yet.

“Thank you?” he manages, more of a question than a real answer, but he’s ruined it anyway.

Clark sits down on one end of the couch, ends up disappointed when Bruce not only decides not to sit beside him, but takes the lone armchair instead.

“Sorry,” Clark says, his eyes trained on their rug, white-turned-grey and frayed at the edges. “I’m not the best company right now.”

He was just fine earlier, but he was distracted. Lois is very good at that, always has been, and it’s most likely one of the reasons they became such close friends. But now, Ma’s right in the next room, and suddenly it feels like there’s a siren blaring, constantly reminding Clark of what’s to come.

“No, I should be the one apologizing. I should have given you more time, let you be the one to find me,” Bruce says, sighing.

When Clark glances up at him, he’s looking straight at Clark with the oddest expression on his face. He finally looks his age, Clark thinks, like the kind of man who’s experienced what he’s had to in his life. He’d looked tired before, but there was always an edge of humor, of tenderness. Even after the gala, he was determined, and he was careful with Clark.

Now—well, Clark doesn’t like what he’s seeing now.

Bruce jerks backwards, his back ramrod straight and his lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

“I should leave,” he says, and  _ no _ .

“No,” Clark says, and it almost scares him how much there is in that one word. He wants to reach across the space between them and hold onto Bruce, wars with himself for a split second before he finally does it, his hand circling around Bruce’s wrist. “Don’t leave. Please.”

He needs people, Clark thinks. Now, of all times, he needs to be close to his most important people. This—Ma and Lois and Bruce in the apartment, waiting for dinner—this is what he wants. He should question how Bruce has so easily and so quickly managed to worm his way into Clark’s bubble of safe people, but in the end, the fact is Bruce has managed it and Clark doesn’t want to see him go.

Clark holds his breath, watches every shift and every tic on Bruce’s face.

Finally, Bruce nods. “Alright,” he says. “Alright. I’ll stay.”

Clark breathes.

“I’m glad.”  _ Thank you _ , he wants to say. Instead, “Do you want to know what Lois and I were talking about before you arrived?”

“Of course. If you’ll allow it,” Bruce says, and Clark doesn’t think he imagines the way Bruce leans forward, closer to Clark. Clark doesn’t let go of Bruce’s wrist, and Bruce doesn’t pull away.

“She was telling me about her ideas for her new novel,” Clark says, and it takes effort not to stumble on his words, to make his tongue work for him, but he manages it. “She wants to—”

“Oh, please don’t,” Bruce says, cutting him off, eyes wide and panicked. “I don’t want to know anything.”

Clark finds himself startled into a laugh. Bruce is that kind of reader then.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Clark has to curl into himself to try to stop himself from breaking out into giggles. It’s just—such a ridiculous, unexpected reaction.

“ _ Clark _ ,” Bruce says, tone dripping with exasperation. Clark looks up just in time to see Bruce trying and failing to fight his own smile.

Clark lets himself grin, lets his voice drop into a teasing tone when he says, “What should we talk about then?”

“I may have some ideas,” Bruce says, and he delivers.

  
  


Bruce and Lois come back every night after that. Bruce says his butler is happy that he’s willingly going anywhere that isn’t home or for work. Lois has always paid them more visits when she’s in between novels, and then she’ll disappear for weeks at a time and come back with a manuscript that’s usually twice as long as it turns out to be when published.

It’s good for them, Clark thinks. He knows he couldn’t have been the only one worried; Ma kept up a strong front for him, but he thinks she’s genuinely feeling better now, having Lois and Bruce to dote on besides Clark.

On Saturday, Bruce invites them to a picnic. He says he’ll take care of everything, to make up for all the meals they made for him the past week, so Clark and Ma only have to show up, dressed in some of their warmer clothes. It’s autumn, without the sweltering heat of summer or the harsh winds of winter, but it’s cold enough that they opt to wear scarves around their necks and hats over their heads. Lois doesn’t come because she finally decided on starting her novel. Clark isn’t too worried, but he thinks he’ll give her five days before he visits her to make sure she’s still alive and working with her brand-new typewriter.

It’s a good day for a picnic though. Clark has always liked the colors of autumn best, and it’s cloudy enough that Clark feels like he can lay down on the grass and spend hours looking up at the sky. Instead, he spends hours with Bruce and Ma, talking about everything and nothing.

He gets the distinct impression that Ma’s spilling all of his secrets to Bruce, which he should really be trying to stop, but Bruce’s laugh is free and  _ beautiful _ and he gets this look of wonder in his eyes whenever Ma says something particularly embarrassing. So Clark lets it happen and vows revenge one day.

“The only person who could tell you about all the stupid things I did as a child is my butler, and I pay him,” Bruce says.

“Oh, Clark can be very charming. I’m sure he can win your dear Alfred over,” Ma says, which Clark appreciates.

“Didn’t you say he liked those tarts we made you take home last week?” Clark says. He tries for a poker face, fails when his lips insist on curling upwards in a smile. He has never met this Alfred Pennyworth, but he has the impression from the bits and pieces that Bruce has let him know that Alfred is a tyrant in the kitchen who has no compunctions telling Bruce which restaurants he’s better of not visiting. For him to say he likes the food Clark and Ma made must be high praise.

“There you go! You’re one step closer already,” Ma says, grinning conspiratorially.

Bruce sighs, defeated. For a split second, Clark wonders if this is what his children must have heard whenever they ganged up on their father but he packs the thought away as soon as it comes. Bruce still hasn’t brought his children up, and Clark knows better than to do it himself.

“He does want to meet you formally actually, have I mentioned that?” Bruce says.

Clark startles. He knows that Bruce has been spending a lot of time with his family lately, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Alfred knows of them, but to hear that Alfred wants to  _ meet  _ them? Alfred, who Clark assumes may very well be a father figure to Bruce, may very well be Bruce’s only family left. It makes Clark feel like this is something  _ more _ , like Bruce has just told him that Clark is just as important to him as he is to Clark.

Clark wonders what Bruce has told Alfred about them, what else Alfred knows of them besides the fact that they make good peach tarts. He wonders if Alfred wants to meet them because he likes them, or because he wants to make sure Bruce is in good hands when he isn’t at home.

“Oh, we’d love to meet him,” Ma says. “He should have come here with us.”

“Oh no. He never eats with me, says it’s improper for a butler to do so,” Bruce says, waving a hand dismissively. “Believe me. I’ve tried many times to convince him.”

“Then we’ll cook with him,” Clark says. He turns to Bruce, teasing, “You can watch, Bruce.”

Bruce glares, but Clark can tell there’s no fire behind it.

“I can cook just fine,” he says, which is a blatant lie. Bruce can chop anything well enough, but he’s just as bad as Lois when he tries to put all the ingredients together. Clark  _ knows _ because when it was his turn to cook last Tuesday, Bruce offered to help. Long story short, Clark had to start from scratch halfway through and Bruce had to be sent to the living room.

So Clark raises an eyebrow at him until he relents.

“I can watch,” Bruce mumbles, and Clark probably wouldn’t have caught it unless he was listening for it. For Bruce’s dignity, he tries not to laugh too much.

“When should we meet him then?” Ma asks. “Maybe he could come for dinner next week? Lois won’t be coming by, after all, so we’re one person short our usual.”

“No, he’ll want to entertain you at the manor, I think,” Bruce says. “He has great pride as a butler. He’ll very much like to impress you first in his own domain.”

“Well, if the food you brought today is any indication, I’m sure he’ll impress us just fine,” Clark says.

“I’ll ask him,” Bruce promises. “He’ll be so happy to see you.”

  
  


Ma never gets to meet Alfred.

  
  


Martha Kent dies on a chilly Wednesday night. She kisses Clark’s cheek good night, goes to sleep, and doesn’t wake up again.

The funeral is held on a drizzling Saturday afternoon. The rest of the typists from the Wayne family office attend, as well as some of their neighbors. Bruce comes too, Alfred at his heels. Bruce stands beside Clark for the whole ceremony, a steady, comforting presence that helps as much as Lois’ grounding grip on his hand.

Clark hasn’t cried since he found her in bed on Thursday, cold and still, so far removed from Clark’s Ma who is warm and kind and full of love that it almost feels like it isn’t the same person at all. But it feels more real now. It’s the first time that Ma isn’t by his side, the first time he doesn’t have the comfort of knowing he can come home to Ma and knowing that there’s someone in this world who understands all of him, who loves him and supports him despite the secret he holds close to his chest.

He cries during the service and doesn’t stop until Ma is buried six feet under and everyone but Lois has already left.

Clark has kept his promise at least. He’s saved his grieving for after Ma died. Now it’s filling him up and he’s bursting at the seams. He doesn’t see any sign of Ma’s silhouette dressed in the black frock she was buried in lingering around the cemetery, and it’s his only comfort.

Still, Lois has to coax him away once the sky turns a dark orange, casting a bleak air onto the world, just as lifeless as the grey, unsmiling portraits the rich have displayed around their manors.

“Let’s get you home,” Lois says.

Clark lets her guide him back to the apartment even though he knows it’s  _ wrong she’s wrong _ and it can’t really be  _ home  _ without Ma. Clark lets himself be tucked into bed, lets Lois wrap herself around him, lets himself be lulled to sleep by Lois’ heartbeat and her breath. She may not know him as well as Ma, or for as long a time, but she knows him well enough to stay with him, loves him enough to hold him through his fitful sleep.

Clark wakes up to bruises under his eyes worse than anything his sleepless nights writing have ever resulted in, but Lois is still sleeping beside him, her chest rising and falling to her breaths, and for her, he gets up. For Ma, for his promise to move on, Clark gets up.

He makes breakfast, even if it’s only just eggs and toasted bread, and a set table is what Lois finds when she finally follows Clark out of his room.

“Lois, can you—” Clark sounds exactly like he feels, his voice rough and grating, so he cuts himself off, breathes, tries again. “Will you help me clear her room out, Lois?”

Lois doesn’t even hesitate, and really, he loves her so much.

“Of course,” she says.  _ Like you even have to ask _ , she doesn’t say, but she doesn’t have to.

Still, Clark needs her to hear what he has to say. He reaches for her hand across the table, says, “Thank you. I know you have a book to write, so I don’t expect you to stay long. Just know that I appreciate your being here and all you’ve done for me.”

“Oh, Clark. I’ll be here as long as you need me,” Lois promises, turning her hand over so she’s holding him right back, squeezing.

Clark breathes.

“Alright,” he says, pulling away from Lois and going back to eating his breakfast. “Alright. We’ll clean it out later, but first, I have to talk to our landlord and then I have to visit the church to pay for the funeral rites.”

“The funeral?” Lois waves a hand dismissively. “That’s all taken care of. You don’t need to pay for anything.”

“What?” Clark’s eyebrows furrow. He wasn’t asked for compensation last night, but he thought the people from the church were just trying to be considerate, just giving him time. “Lois, you didn’t need to pay for anything. Ma and I have savings for emergencies like this.”

“Oh, Clark no,” Lois says, shaking her head. “It was Bruce. He paid for everything. He does that for all his employees.”

Clark doesn’t know how to name the feeling that bursts in his chest after hearing that. He knows Lois said it’s something Bruce does for everyone who works for him but—well. It still makes Clark feel like Bruce is thinking of him.

“I’ll have to thank him then,” Clark says.

“Of course,” Lois says, “and I’ll be right there with you.”

_ Of course. _

Clark thinks maybe it won’t be so bad making good on his promise to Ma if he has people like Lois and Bruce with him.

  
  


Clark and Lois make the twenty-minute drive to the Wayne estate on Sunday morning. It’s a pleasant day, the sunlight gentle when it manages to peek through the clouds, so they use the roofless motor car and drive to the edge of the city where the estate sits, far from the noise and the bustle of the inner city.

Just as well, Clark thinks, because he thinks it would have been difficult trying to take in all of Wayne estate through the window of a roofed car. It’s nothing like he’s ever seen before, not in Kansas and not in the city. What greets them first is a manicured garden, with bright green grass, cobblestone pathways, and a round fountain with a sculpture of Artemis perched on top. Stone steps lined with stone balustrades lead up to the manor itself, immaculate white.

And it is a manor; Clark doesn’t know what else to call it but that. It isn’t like the narrow townhouses and the small apartments in the city, nor is it like the rustic, cozy houses in Kansas. It’s polished, well-maintained, and Clark suspects the same can be said of the interiors as well.

Alfred greets them at the foot of the staircase, hands at his sides, his head tilted downwards slightly until Clark and Lois finally step in front of him.

“Mr. Kent, Ms. Lane,” he says. “It’s good to see you, if I may say so.”

“Indeed, Mr. Pennyworth,” Clark replies in kind. “We were hoping to talk to Bruce?”

“We have flowers,” Lois supplies helpfully, holding up the bouquet they picked up from Ma’s favorite florist on the way.

Alfred takes it, tucks it under his arm, says, “Master Bruce is inside. Please follow me.”

Clark doesn’t know what he was expecting, but the interior of the manor goes above and beyond anything he could have ever imagined. They step into a high-ceilinged hallway with portraits lining the walls to their right and a grand staircase that hugs the wall to their left. It stretches for a few yards before stopping at a doorway the leads them into the parlor.

The parlor is  _ huge _ , high-ceilinged like the hallway before it. There’s a grand piano in the sitting area, a relatively modest dining table in front of the fireplace that looks to be thrice as wide as Clark is, and there are steps on one end of the parlor leading up to a mezzanine fashioned into a library. He can very easily imagine parties taking place in here, a crowd gathered in the sitting area as someone works the grand piano, dining table pushed to the side to make room for dancing.

Clark wonders how long it’s been since that’s happened, files the question away as something that he should not ever ask.

“I shall fetch Master Bruce from his study. Please wait here,” Alfred says, and then he disappears back into the hallway.

Clark turns to Lois, eyebrows raised.

“I know. It’s grander than any place in the city,” Lois says. She heads over to the sitting area, sits down on one end of the couch closest to the door. Clark follows suit, feeling just a little bit out of his depth. He’s been in houses big enough to host parties in, but this place seems even bigger.

Colder too.

Seven children dead—

But no, Clark hasn’t seen or felt or heard anything. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

“It’s beautiful,” Clark says instead, but Lois knows him well enough to hear the hesitation in his voice.

“It’s big for one man and his butler,” Lois says, quiet, as if she’s afraid the walls of the house will hear her.

It feels a little disrespectful just to think about it. Clark doesn’t answer beyond a nod.

Soon enough, the doors open, revealing Bruce in only his dress shirt and his pants, looking as tired as he is disheveled.

“Clark,” he says. No, he  _ breathes _ it, like he can’t live without it.

It makes Clark’s heart clench, has his nerves sparking, screaming. Clark opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know what to say, has had the air knocked out of him beyond that. There is something in Bruce’s eyes he cannot  _ will not _ name in fear of giving himself hope.

Clark hasn’t known Bruce for long after all.

Bruce seems to remember where he is, his eyes focusing on Lois for the first time since he burst into the room.

“Ms. Lane, good day,” he says, but he sounds dazed, distracted. By Clark, it seems, judging by how often Bruce glances back at him. Then, “Excuse us.”

Bruce closes the distance between him and Clark, grabs him by the arm and leads him out the door. Clark doesn’t really have much choice but to follow.

“Bruce, what—”

Bruce turns abruptly, fixes Clark with a stare that’s all too serious, all too resolute.

“You should live here, Clark,” Bruce says, and it feels like a sudden downpour of rain hitting Clark’s skin.

“Are you—” Clark cuts himself off. He doesn’t really know what he wants to say, so he rearranges his thoughts until they morph into something concrete. “What do you mean, Bruce?”

“I know you and Martha used to take turns paying your rent, and I know you’re in between novels right now,” Bruce says. He pauses for a breath, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair, tugging.

“Why are you really asking this of me, Bruce?” Clark asks, because Bruce’s hands wouldn’t shake if he were just extending a favor for one of his employees or one of his friends.

“I know we haven’t known each other for long,” Bruce starts, and Clark finds his breath stuck in his throat. “This isn’t the same as the offer to give you another place to live, Clark but—marry me.”

“Marry you?” Clark murmurs, frozen. At most, he expected—well. He isn’t a fool. He knows Bruce has been flirting with him from the start, and he’s been flirting right back. He knows that Bruce helped him in those two weeks between Clark seeing Pa and Clark losing Ma, even if maybe Bruce didn’t know it.

He also knows that Bruce is the closest Clark has ever been to opening his heart up to someone who isn’t Ma or Lois, and that’s almost unbelievable considering he’s only known Bruce for less than a month.

Clark thinks of Ma asking him to move on, Ma smiling at Bruce and allowing him into their lives. Clark thinks  _ yes _ , there isn’t any other answer than yes.

“Alright,” he says, and for good measure, he reaches across the distance between them, takes Bruce’s hands in his. “I’ll marry you.”

Bruce looks down at him, eyes wide. “You will?” he says, like he didn’t actually expect Clark to say yes.

Clark thinks he didn’t expect himself to say yes either, but this is what his heart is screaming for him to do, and this is what he  _ wants  _ right in this moment. He wants this man who is broken but still living, who has patched himself up like one of those vases streaked with gold, beautiful even after they’ve cracked.

“Yes,” Clark breathes. “ _ Yes _ .”


	3. and then i haunt you via the rear-view mirror

Their wedding is small. It isn’t a legal wedding by any means, but it’s enough. Bruce’s friend officiates it, while Lois and Alfred serve as their witnesses.

The next day, Clark moves into the Wayne estate.

The first thing he does as Bruce’s husband is to follow him around the estate for a proper tour. They didn’t get the chance before, distracted by Bruce’s proposal, but Clark takes one step into his new home and immediately has Alfred stealing his bags away, promising to have everything set up in the room he’ll share with Bruce by the time they finish going around the estate. Clark wants to protest, not at all used to having a butler do these kinds of things for him, but he is quickly figuring out that Alfred is a force of nature that cannot be stopped.

“You’ll get used to it,” Bruce assures him, to which Clark nods.

Perhaps it will be easier to let Alfred happen, but doing mundane tasks around the house has always helped Clark calm down and focus, especially when he’s stuck in his writing or when he’s waiting for word back from his editor. He thinks if Alfred sees that it’s helping him, he’ll have to allow it eventually. One cannot be best of friends with Lois Lane without a stubborn streak of their own, so Clark is willing to lose this particular battle and play the long game instead. 

In the meantime, Clark allows Bruce to lead him by the hand. They start with the parlor, which Clark has already seen, and then the kitchen, which is meticulously organized, though Bruce cannot for the life of him tell Clark how. All he knows is where the mugs are and where the coffee is, and that’s it. It would be worrying that Bruce only knows how to get his caffeine fix if Clark hadn’t already known how much work Bruce has to do.

Then, they go upstairs, where the walls are lined with portraits of all the Waynes before Bruce. There’s a question on the tip of Clark’s tongue about Bruce’s children, but he doesn’t dare ask it. Instead, he asks Bruce how many rooms there are.

“Eleven bedrooms,” Bruce answers, “but most of them are locked. Only the master bedroom and Alfred’s room are in use. Alfred used to insist on sleeping in the servants’ quarters, but after my mother and father died, he moved into the room next to mine.”

“Do you have other people working for you?” Clark asks, just as Bruce leads him inside the first room in the right wing. It’s his study, so Clark expects it to have piles of paperwork everywhere, but it’s neater than Clark would have thought.

“Yes, but none of them live with us. They come in every morning to help clean the first floor, but the rest of the house is Alfred’s job alone,” Bruce says, but Clark is barely paying attention, instead caught by the large portrait hanging directly in front of the door.

Bruce is easily recognizable, sitting front and center, and so is Alfred, who is standing at the back, behind Bruce. Clark doesn’t know who’s who, doesn’t know which face corresponds to each name he knows, but he counts nine people in the portrait, which means each one of Bruce’s seven children must be present in it. He thinks that the boy sitting on Bruce’s left might be Damian, because he has Bruce’s bones, has the exact same twist of Bruce’s mouth when he frowns.

“Ah.”

Clark startles, realizes he’s been staring, but when he turns to Bruce, he finds Bruce looking at the portrait as well, eyes glazed, unfocused. It makes Bruce seem like he’s out of Clark’s reach.

“I forget that you aren’t from this city,” Bruce says, so quietly that Clark has to strain his ears to hear it. Bruce pauses, long enough that Clark wonders if that’s it, if that’s the extent to which Bruce will allow Clark to see for now.

Clark understands. He has his own secret after all.

But Bruce isn’t done.

“These are my children,” Bruce says. Then, almost like an afterthought, “Were.”

“They’re beautiful,” Clark says, because they were, and they were all so young. He thinks of the man who killed them, the man who was able to look at these children and decide that he would be the one to take them away from this world, and Clark hopes that he’s rotting in prison. “I’m so sorry.”

Clark steps into Bruce’s space, reaches for his hand, twining their fingers together.

“They say time heals all wounds, but time only makes us used to the pain, doesn’t it?” Clark says, his tone light. Then, on the tail-end of courage, he asks, “Will you tell me about them, Bruce?”

Clark hears a sharp intake of breath, and when he turns to see if Bruce is alright, he finds Bruce looking right back at him.

“It doesn’t have to be now,” Clark amends. “It doesn't have to be any time soon. Just know that if you want to talk about them, then I’ll gladly listen to you.”

Clark doesn’t know what he’s expecting Bruce to do, but it certainly isn’t this—Bruce in his arms, nose buried in the crook of his neck. He thinks he hears Bruce murmur  _ thank you _ , but it’s muffled and it quickly disappears into his skin. Clark can only hug him back, can only be happy that he’s made the right choice and said the right thing.

He’s standing on shaky ground right now, held up by Bruce, Lois, and pure will alone. He doesn’t want to ruin his relationship with Bruce on day one, but he doesn’t want Bruce to feel like he has to hide his scars or bottle up every sliver of his past. Already, Clark finds it difficult trying to balance them, but—well. He’s doing alright so far.

Bruce pulls away eventually, but only far enough that their breaths don’t mingle between them.

“Let’s go to your study,” Bruce says.

Clark raises his eyebrows. “I have my own study?”

“I had Alfred convert one of the rooms into your study,” Bruce says. He pulls Clark further down the hall, to the third door from the end. “There’s a—well, you’ll see soon enough.”

Where Clark suspects the bed used to be is a sitting area with a couch Clark will no doubt fall asleep in and a coffee table he can already imagine covered with notes and drafts. There’s a big window overlooking the woods surrounding the manor with a curtain pulled back to let in the sunlight, and underneath it is a desk with a brand-new typewriter sitting on it.

“It was last-minute, so it isn’t much, but I thought you would want a space of your own for writing,” Bruce says, squeezing Clark’s hand in his, and isn’t it just endearing, Clark thinks, that Bruce only gets nervous in front of him when he’s doing something absolutely sweet and wonderful?

“It’s lovely,” Clark says. “I love it, Bruce. Thank you.”

“Oh,” Bruce says.

“Oh,” Clark agrees, and then he leans in for a kiss, soft and sweet until it isn’t. Clark can taste the coffee they had before finally moving out of Clark’s apartment, can taste Bruce more than he could when they kissed for their wedding, quick and chaste. Bruce’s tongue in his mouth is hot, and Bruce’s kiss makes Clark’s heart stutter in his chest, makes him heady with want for  _ more more more _ .

But if it’s Clark who initiates the kiss, it’s Bruce who pulls away, gentle, almost hesitant.

“We should go see our room,” Bruce says. At Clark’s raised brow, he bristles, says, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Of course,” Clark says, but the twist of his mouth says something else entirely.

Bruce huffs out a laugh, wastes no time pulling Clark across the manor to the left wing. The master bedroom mirrors Bruce’s study, and they’re both bigger than all of the other rooms in the manor. It must be as big as the entirety of Clark’s former’s apartment, with a huge four-poster bed and a fireplace with framed photographs arranged neatly on top of it. There’s enough space for three armchairs and a coffee table besides the closet that spans half the width of the room, and Clark has to wonder whether Bruce actually manages to use up all of his closet space because Clark doesn’t think he’d be able to fill even a third of it.

It’s dark, Clark thinks. Darker than the rest of the house, but it isn’t only because of the navy blue drapings and dark wood furniture or because the curtains are undrawn. There’s a heavy feeling that permeates the room, that has Clark’s breath stuck in his throat, has the hair on the back of his neck rising. It isn’t so bad really; it isn’t chilly and Clark doesn’t feel his stomach turning. But it’s uncomfortable, and the fact that Clark can feel this much without seeing any ghosts makes him feel even more unsettled.

Thankfully, Clark is given a distraction in the form of a Great Dane who comes to sniff at Clark’s feet.

“Who is this?” Clark murmurs, bending down and offering the dog his hand for further sniffing.

“His name is Titus,” Bruce says. “He’s a good boy.”

“Yes, he is,” Clark agrees, very much endeared and delighted by Titus’ good manners. He sits when Bruce asks him to, and Clark takes it as an opportunity to kneel next to him and pet him. Titus enjoys it clearly, barking once before he pants happily, his tongue lolling out. Oddly, Clark is reminded of Pete’s cat, who would sit regally on Clark’s lap, purring contentedly when he’s being petted.

Clark glances up at Bruce, whose lips are stretched into a small smile. “You never told me you had a dog, Bruce.”

“Ah. He isn’t really mine,” Bruce says, and Clark would have assumed he meant Titus was Alfred’s if it weren’t for the edge of melancholy to his tone.

“I think if he’s waiting in your room, he must think he’s yours,” Clark says.

He gives Titus one last pat before he holds up a hand that Bruce doesn’t hesitate to take, helping him up. Neither of them let go after.

“Is there anything else you’d like to show me?” Clark asks.

“Nothing we can’t save for another day,” Bruce says, and Clark barely registers the way Bruce’s voice dips before Bruce kisses him, open-mouthed, overwhelming. Bruce’s hands are on him, cupping the back of his neck and splayed across his lower back, pulling him closer so they’re pressed together from their lips to their torsos to their thighs.

Clark whines, pulls away enough that he can look at Bruce without getting cross-eyed.

“Titus is right there,” he says. “And isn’t it dinner soon?”

“Alfred must have only started cooking,” Bruce says, but he sighs, steps away so Clark isn’t in any danger of getting excited at the most inopportune time.

“I’ll let you take care of me later,” Clark promises, leaning in to press a kiss onto Bruce’s cheek.

Bruce hums, wraps an arm around Clark’s waist. “For now, perhaps you should show me all of your best suits that I haven’t yet seen.”

Clark narrows his eyes. “Bruce, I swear, if you’re going to use this as an excuse to buy me even more suits—”

“Nonsense! You can never have too many good suits,” Bruce says, waving a hand dismissively. His eyes crinkle when he smiles, which Clark loves just a little bit too much considering the way all of his thoughts are thrown to the side whenever he sees it. “Besides, you’re my husband now. It’s my duty to spoil you, Clark.”

Clark sighs, resigned.

“I suppose we have nothing better to do,” he says, and it’s almost worth it when he sees Bruce’s smile widen.

Clark doesn’t even notice how their room isn’t as suffocating as it was when he first entered it until they’re on their way out, torn away from Clark’s limited wardrobe by Alfred ringing the kitchen bell for dinner.

  
  


Clark forgets to lock the door when he soaks in the bath that night, which is why Titus manages to nose his way into the room, a red ball in his mouth.

He doesn’t mind it really, appreciates the distraction because he’s only been staring at the wall for the last few minutes, jumping at every little sound and worrying about every chill he gets. He dries his hand on his towel, and then he gently pries the ball from Titus’ mouth.

“You want to play, boy?” he says, smiling when Titus barks his assent. “Alright. Go fetch, Titus.”

Clark throws the ball out the door, now open wide. It bounces off the wall at an angle, sending it down the hall, towards the stairs. He listens, hopes Titus catches it before it reaches the steps, and sure enough, he hears Titus’ pattering footsteps fade, pause, and then approach once again.

“Good boy,” Clark says, taking the ball and giving Titus a good scratch under his chin before he throws the ball again. Titus, dutiful as ever, turns and runs after it.

While he waits, Clark leans back against the curve of the tub. The water’s still warm, but nowhere near the steaming hot that it was when he first got in, and now his skin’s red like it was rubbed raw. That’s why, when he feels a chill go up his spine and sees goosebumps on his arms, Clark tenses up, his shoulders drawing back as he stares at the shadows flickering in the hallway.

He wars with himself for a split second before he stands up, reaching for the robe Alfred laid out for him and wrapping it around himself. Clark drips on the rug when he gets out of the tub, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it when Titus is already running back in, immediately sitting by Clark’s feet, looking like he hasn’t a care in the world even though his red ball is nowhere in sight.

Clark bends down, takes Titus’s face in his hands, asks, “Where’s your ball, Titus?”

Titus barks at him once before he starts wriggling in Clark’s grasp. Clark lets him go, watches as he trots out the bathroom only to stop right outside the door. Titus barks again, tail wagging, eyes trained further down the hall.

Clark doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but his heart beats fast and blood rushes in his ears and every step he takes feels like it takes ages. He thinks to himself, if this is a ghost, then it must be someone Titus knows, and if it’s someone Titus knows, then it very likely is one of Bruce’s children.

For the first time in this house, Clark sees the dark silhouette of a ghost when he steps out of the bathroom. It’s small, barely tall enough to reach Clark’s waist, and the red ball sits right in front of it.

“Hi there,” Clark says, his voice betraying only a little bit of his uncertainty and his discomfort. “Are you Titus’ friend?”

A beat passes. Two. Three.

The ghost doesn’t answer.

“My name is Clark. I hope you don’t mind that I was playing with Titus,” he says. “He’s a very good dog.”

This time, Clark thinks he hears a huff, barely there, but then the ghost kicks the ball towards him, lightly enough that it rolls to a stop right in front of Clark. Titus noses at Clark’s hip, whining.

“Alright, boy. I know,” Clark says, smoothing the fur down Titus’ neck. He looks away from the ghost when he bends down to pick the ball up, keeps his eyes trained on Titus when he gives the dog another pat and asks him to sit.

“Do you want to join us? It looks like Titus still wants to play,” Clark says, keeping his tone light and friendly. When he glances up at the ghost, he lets a small smile stretch across his face.

For a few moments, Clark thinks the ghost isn’t going to respond, but then it turns around and takes off in a run. Titus perks up and doesn’t hesitate to follow, catching up with the ghost a few feet away from the top of the stairs where he barks happily, coming up on his two hind legs, asking for pets that he will not feel.

The ghost seems to realize this, because it takes off running again, only this time, in Clark’s direction. The ghost runs and Titus follows, and Clark has to wonder if perhaps this is who Bruce was thinking of when he said Titus wasn’t his. The ghost runs and it runs right into Clark, through him, sending shivers all throughout his body.

“That was a very mean thing to do. You’re very cold, you know,” Clark says. He turns around, another teasing complaint on the tip of his tongue, only to freeze in place when he finds another dark figure with the first ghost. This one is a little taller, a little wider, and he recognizes the tell-tale curve of a hoop skirt. She’s standing close to the first ghost, and it’s hard to tell just from the light spilling into the hallway from the bathroom, but it’s almost as if she has her arm around the first ghost’s shoulder. 

“Oh, hello,” Clark says. Titus is pawing at his feet, so Clark kneels on the floor to appease him and tries his very best not to get any drool on himself.

He keeps an eye on the ghosts though, intrigued. He thinks the first ghost must be Bruce’s youngest if he’s this small, and the second ghost must be someone close to him. One of his sisters perhaps? Clark thinks Lois called them Stephanie and Cassandra, but he does not know their faces, much less their builds.

He opens his mouth, about to ask, when they suddenly disappear, just like that.

“Master Clark?”

Clark startles, and he turns around so quickly that he gets a little dizzy. It’s only Alfred. 

“Mr. Pennyworth,” Clark breathes, relieved. 

“It’s quite alright, Master Clark,” Alfred says. He approaches, pauses in front of the bathroom door, blocking out the light. “Is Titus bothering you?”

“Oh, no. I enjoy playing with Titus. I’ve always wanted a dog growing up, but Ma and I never got to it,” Clark says. He stands up, keeps one hand on Titus’ head.

Alfred nods, says, “That’s good to hear.” Then, he turns away, steps into the bathroom. Suddenly, Clark realizes he hasn’t cleaned up at all, even went so far as to leave a trail of water from the tub to the hallway. The floors are made of  _ wood _ . Alfred most likely won’t say anything, but Clark still feels guilty about it.

Before Clark could even open his mouth to apologize, Alfred speaks up again. “Titus has been in need of a friend, I think. Master Bruce is always so busy, and I’m afraid an old man like me can’t keep up with him.”

Clark, surprised, huffs out a laugh. “I’m sure you aren’t  _ that  _ old, Mr. Pennyworth. But I’m glad. I have few friends beyond Lois, so I have no problem entertaining Titus.”

Alfred hums. Clark hears the chain attached to the plug brush against the tub, hears the water draining away.

“Nevertheless,” Alfred says, “I should take him, Master Clark. It’s getting late. Master Bruce must be waiting for you.”

Bruce was reading a book when Clark left for his bath, but Clark did promise not to take too long.

“Thank you, Mr. Pennyworth. I’ll leave him with you then,” Clark says. He bends down to press a kiss goodbye between Titus’ ears, which the dog allows with great dignity.

“It’s no problem at all, Master Clark,” Alfred says, and now he’s at the door, smiling pleasantly at Clark. He extends a hand, palm up, and clicks his tongue. Titus noses at Clark’s hand one last time before he trots over to Alfred.

Clark can’t help but smile right back. It’s been a very good day, he thinks.

  
  


Bruce is still reading his book when Clark pads into the master bedroom.

“Did I make you wait too long?” Clark asks, his lips curling upwards into a teasing smile. He watches Bruce mark his place in his book and put it away, watches Bruce raise an eyebrow at him and laughs.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Clark says. Then, he apologizes even further by getting on the bed and wrapping his arms around Bruce. He looks up at Bruce, looks at the soft line of Bruce’s mouth and the slight furrow of his eyebrows.

Bruce is by no means a small man, taller and wider than Clark even, but he looked small sitting on his big bed, all alone in his big bedroom. He doesn’t look so small now that Clark’s pressed up against him, with only the fabric of their robes between them. Clark thinks that in this big, empty house, Bruce looks like he needs warmth just as much as Clark does.

“Were you lonely?” Clark asks.

“Yes,” Bruce answers, and  _ oh _ . Clark wants to kiss him.

Clark wants to thank him for offering so much of himself, for promising to offer up even more. Clark wants to know what every downturn of his mouth or every furrow of his eyebrows means, wants to know who Bruce is beyond the man who held Clark and offered to take him home after seeing him kneeling on a balcony, pale and shaking, or the man who paid for Ma’s funeral. Clark wants to know all of the ghosts that haunt this manor, wants to know what it is about Bruce that makes them stay.

But for now, Clark mostly just wants to kiss him, and so he does.

It isn’t heated like their kiss that afternoon, not chaste like their kiss at their wedding. It’s tender, slow, exploratory. Clark’s hands traverse Bruce’s spine and his neck, up to his thick, greying hair, and he feels Bruce give as much as he gets. Clark doesn’t even realize that Bruce has loosened the tie around his waist until his robe is already falling away from his shoulder and Bruce’s nails are grazing his skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps that for once aren’t because of the shadows no one else ever sees.

“Not anymore,” Bruce whispers against his lips, and Clark has to think about it first, has to force himself to connect the dots, but when he figures out what Bruce meant, he thinks,  _ good _ . He thinks,  _ never again _ .

Clark climbs onto Bruce’s lap, his knees bracketing Bruce’s hips and his hands pressed against Bruce’s chest. Clark’s neck feels hot where Bruce is kissing him, open-mouthed, sucking on the skin in between little butterfly kisses that make Clark ache for  _ more _ .

Clark weaves his fingers into Bruce’s hair, tugging until Bruce pulls away, looks up at Clark with his lips pink and his pupils blown wide.

“Let me take care of you,” Clark murmurs.

The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirks up in a small smile. “I thought I was supposed to take care of you.”

“Later,” Clark says. They have time.

“Then my answer is yes,” Bruce says.  _ Yes. _

Clark doesn’t waste any time. He unties the knot holding Bruce’s robe together, watches as fabric gives way to skin so much paler than Clark’s own. Clark thinks his skin makes Bruce look like he hasn’t seen the sun. It makes Clark want to see what Bruce looks like under the light of the sun on a warm afternoon. He wants to see Bruce in the garden, curled up on a bench with his head on Clark’s lap.

In the summer, perhaps. For now, with winter approaching, Clark will have to be content with seeing Bruce in layers upon layers of clothing he’ll have the privilege of peeling off one by one at night.

But, oh, Bruce’s skin is scarred. Clark wants to know the story behind every single one of them, wants to map out Bruce’s life just from his scars alone. There’s one on Bruce’s stomach that runs parallel to the V of his hips and Clark wants to kiss it, but he restrains himself. Next time, he thinks. Next time, he’ll find all of Bruce’s scars and he will kiss each one of them until Bruce is aching, begging for more.

For now, Clark has better things to do.

He hasn’t had much experience. His work has always been his love, and even if he always had his own room, he still lived with Ma. He went to parties with Lois, got drunk with Lois, left with Lois. So no, Clark hasn’t had much opportunity to gain experience, but that doesn’t mean he has no notches in his post entirely. A few handjobs and blowjobs in back alleys, a quick fix in bathrooms after a particularly taxing novel, but nothing compares to this, Clark thinks.

Bruce is laid out under him, waiting, staring up at Clark as if he’ll let Clark do anything and everything to him. He looks at Clark like he’s scared of him exactly because he would let Clark do whatever he wants. But Clark made a promise to take care of Bruce, and he has no intentions of going back on his word.

Clark kisses him, and just as his lips find Bruce’s, his hand finds Bruce’s cock, already hard. He’s uncut like Clark is, but Clark is a little bit girthier and Bruce is a little bit longer. Bruce’s fingers wrap themselves around the base of his own cock, squeezing.

“How do you want me?” Clark asks, breathless. He can barely manage to take his eyes off Bruce’s cock, transfixed, but he does, looks into Bruce’s eyes and sees the answer.  _ Any way you want _ .

“Like this,” is what Bruce says, and he pulls back his foreskin, exposes the head of his cock, red and glistening with precome.

“Beautiful,” Clark says, and then he wraps an arm around Bruce’s shoulder and licks the palm of his other hand so he can finally  _ touch _ . When he does, his thumb brushes the ridge under the head of Bruce’s cock, and Clark is rewarded by a whine from Bruce, high, desperate.

“Don’t tease,” Bruce pleads, and yes, of course. Clark is supposed to be taking care of him.

“I’m sorry,” Clark whispers, and he whispers it again into Bruce’s skin when he leans down and takes the head of Bruce’s cock between his lips. He keeps it there for a moment, looks up at Bruce and catches the way Bruce is red all over, from his cheeks to the line of his neck to the planes of his chest. Clark wants to wrap his lips around Bruce’s nipples, wants to know if he can make Bruce moan if he flicks his tongue over them, but no. Next time, next time.

Instead, Clark flicks his tongue across the ridge under the head of Bruce’s cock and revels in the way Bruce whimpers and pulls on his hair because of it. He hums into Bruce’s skin, another apology. He’s learning Bruce, mapping out the places on his body that make him writhe and whine and whimper. But it’s slow,  _ so _ slow.

Clark wraps his fingers around the hand Bruce has on his cock, and then slowly, he takes more and more of Bruce into his mouth, on and on until his lips touch his and Bruce’s fingers twined together. It’s—a lot. It’s longer than any other cock he’s had in his mouth and he has to take a few good moments to get his throat used to the stretch, has to swallow around the head a few times before his eyes stop watering.

But it’s  _ good _ . It’s good and it’s heavy on Clark’s tongue and it makes him feel full. The drag of Bruce’s cock on Clark’s lips and Clark’s tongue makes Clark dizzy with want, dizzy with the thought of Bruce inside him, between his thighs, against his own cock, hard against his stomach.

Bruce is enjoying this though. He’s sensitive, and even if he isn’t loud, he’s still very much expressive, low whines escaping from his lips whenever Clark’s tongue makes it way from the tip of his cock and down the underside.

When Clark starts pumping Bruce’s cock with their linked hands, he hears Bruce choke on air. He takes the opportunity to pull off of Bruce’s cock, circling his tongue around the head once before he starts lapping at it, little kitten licks where their hands used to be.

“Will you come on my face, Bruce?” Clark asks, and then he licks up Bruce’s cock, makes sure that his tongue catches on the ridge under his head. He looks up at Bruce, sees his wide eyes and his lips, bitten red, and Clark can’t help but smile. He lets Bruce feel it, presses his lips into the underside of Bruce’s cock, asks, “Or do you want to come down my throat?”

Clark punctuates it with a twist of his hand, and he’s rewarded by the sight of Bruce throwing his head back, eyes fluttering closed as he moans and comes. Clark does his best to catch Bruce’s come on his tongue, lets it dribble past his lips instead of swallowing right away. He wants Bruce to see him first, wants Bruce to see what Clark looks like on his knees with come all over his face, lips red and abused, his eyes only for Bruce. Clark shifts his hands from Bruce’s cock to his thighs, not paying any attention to his own cock even though he wants to because  _ no _ , he thinks. Not yet. Not until Bruce has seen what he’s done to Clark.

Clark waits, waits until Bruce sags, eyes opening tentatively like Clark imagines they would in the mornings. Clark waits until Bruce finally, finally looks down at him, waits until Bruce’s breath hitches upon seeing him, and then finally, Clark swallows.

Bruce groans, long and low, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, can’t believe that he’s here with Clark, and Clark  _ loves  _ it, wants night after night of it. He wants to come back to this bed everyday and see Bruce with his walls down once again, wants to know how far he can push Bruce, how far within Bruce he can reach until there are no more walls left.

Clark wants all of that just as much as he wants to just—just make Bruce feel good, give him as much as he’s so freely given Clark.

“You’re magnificent,” Bruce says, and Clark has had people say so many things to him after sex, has heard dirtier, filthier things, but somehow, this feels like  _ more _ . It sends a shiver up Clark’s spine, surprises a moan out of him. Bruce does nothing but barrel on, says, “Beautiful, Clark. You’re so beautiful, so good.”

“You really think so?” Clark says, and when Bruce kisses him, it feels like drowning.

“Yes,” Bruce answers.

“Show me how much you mean it,” Clark says, and Bruce does.

Bruce pulls Clark up, an arm wrapped firmly around his waist to hold him close, pulls him into a kiss as his free hand wraps around Clark’s cock. It’s a relief almost, after so long neglecting it, refusing to touch it, and somehow Bruce knows exactly what Clark needs, knows exactly how to touch him, how to bring him to the edge. It doesn’t take long, not with Bruce’s hands on him, not with Bruce’s mouth on his, not with Bruce’s words still ringing in Clark’s head.

“Beautiful,” Bruce whispers again, and that’s all it takes for Clark to come.

_ No _ , he wants to say.  _ No, that’s you. That’s you. _

But Clark can’t get the words out of his mouth, can’t make any sound besides a groan and a grunt. He’s tired—sated but tired, like this whole day has finally caught up with him. He wants nothing more than to collapse onto the bed and sleep, basking in the warmth radiating from Bruce’s body underneath him, but Bruce has other ideas. Bruce slides out from under Clark, presses a kiss to Clark’s temple when Clark whines.

He comes back soon enough, a damp towel in his hand that he uses to clean Clark off, from his face to his torso to his soft cock. Clark should probably apologize, should probably do something other than lie down and let it happen, but Bruce doesn’t look like he minds. Instead, Bruce looks at Clark with this small, fond smile on his face that almost hurts to look at.

Clark feels his throat close and his cheeks flush and it’s just—too much. He attempts to hide his face, brings his hands up to do just that, but Bruce settles in beside him, wraps his hands around Clark’s wrists, pulls them gently away from Clark’s face until their hands lie between their bodies, intertwined.

“Don’t do that,” Bruce says. “The first thing I want to see when I wake up is your face.”

And that’s—

What can Clark say to  _ that _ ?

Nothing, so Clark settles for a nod, settles for giving Bruce exactly what he needs. They fall asleep facing each other.

In the morning, Clark wakes up to find Bruce still fast asleep. Neither of them get up until hours later, after Bruce has woken up and pulled Clark into the day’s first kiss.

  
  


After breakfast, Clark finds himself once again in Bruce’s study.

It’s seems different, but perhaps that’s unfair. Clark’s perception was warped yesterday, focused on a single point, but now that he knows what to expect, he can force himself to look beyond the portrait. Besides the desk and the sitting area, there is a long table hugging one of the walls, some sort of workstation littered with tools and machinery that have been taken apart. It’s the only messy part of the room, with its grease stains and its chaos Clark guesses only Bruce can understand. Clark suspects it’s also the only part of the room that Alfred doesn’t touch, which Bruce readily admits when asked.

“It’s only a hobby,” Bruce says. He sits down on the lone stool in front of his workstation, holding Clark’s hand all the while. “Things on the company’s backburner, projects that have been cancelled entirely.”

Bruce lets out a breath, long and shaky. Clark can tell he has more to say and so he doesn’t say anything, only squeezes Bruce’s hand in his.

“My son, Timothy, he had a mind for this kind of thing. He wanted to be an engineer, wanted to come with me to work whenever I visited our factories and our research laboratories,” Bruce says eventually. “I could never say no to my children, and so when he asked if he could take home one of the retired engines, it was in the car with us on the way home.”

There’s this smile on his face that Clark knows intimately, a smile that Clark has smiled before, a smile that hurts and heals at the same time. Bruce is remembering good memories, Clark knows that, but he also knows that Bruce must be hurting.

“He must have loved that,” Clark says. He wraps his arms around Bruce’s shoulders, presses his cheek into Bruce’s hair. “He must have loved you so much.”

“He did,” Bruce says, and he hunches into himself. But he doesn’t cry. No, he doesn’t cry, but Clark thinks it’s only because he has no more tears left to shed. “I miss him. I miss them all so much, Clark.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Clark murmurs. Clark presses a kiss onto the top of Bruce’s head, holds on tighter.

He feels his stomach twist with guilt. Clark’s here, asking Bruce to tell him about his children, and it must be unearthing as much bad memories as it is good. But no. Bruce does want this, wants to talk about this instead of hiding it away like he has for so many years. Anything he wants to say about his past, Clark should only hold his hand and listen because it’s what Bruce deserves.

The only warning Clark gets is the distinct feeling of being watched. He feels someone tug on his shirt and then suddenly, there’s a shock of coldness around the right side of his body from the shoulder down. Clark has to fight a shiver, has to fight the impulse to jerk away. He doesn’t feel any animosity from the shadow clinging to him in some semblance of an embrace, doesn’t feel anything but melancholy and heartbreak, and so he lets it happen.

Ghosts don’t usually speak to him, and he’s never heard anything substantial other than his own name whispered to him again and again, but not today, it seems.

“Tell him we miss him,” the ghost says. “Please.”

Clark swallows past the lump in his throat. There isn’t much he can do to help Bruce, to replace the part of Bruce’s heart that died along with his children, but he can do this.

“They miss you too,” Clark says, and he feels it when Bruce nods.

Bruce looks up at Clark. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and then he captures Clark’s lips in a kiss he barely feels he deserves. But Clark kisses back, gives as good as he gets until Bruce finally pulls away.

“How are you feeling?” Clark asks.

“Better now that you’re here,” Bruce answers.

Even after Clark leaves the room for Bruce to work, the ghost doesn’t disappear.

  
  


Clark now knows Bruce’s family portrait by heart.

Bruce, front and center.

Damian sitting on his left side, with a frown on his face that’s endearing even if it’s supposed to be unbecoming of an eight-year-old.

Stephanie on Damian’s left, a smile on her face that makes her look like she’s about to burst into laughter.

Timothy on Bruce’s right, shoulders slouched and glasses perched on his nose that do nothing to hide the bags under his eyes.

Cassandra on Tim’s right, pressed to his side, almost as if she’s holding him up. Somehow, she reminds Clark of Lois with the set of her mouth and the arch of her brow.

Alfred right behind Bruce and Damian, his usual impassive expression tinged with pride. One of his hands rests on Bruce’s shoulder.

Duke on Alfred’s left, standing a little awkwardly, wide-eyed, still new to the family. Bruce says he’d only adopted Duke three months before the portrait was made.

Richard on Alfred’s right, eyes twinkling even in two dimensions.

Jason on Richard’s right, broad-shouldered and tall, his lips twisted into a smug sort of smirk.

Clark now knows that Damian was the boy he saw that first night, that Steph was the girl who joined them later on, that it was Timothy who clung to him and asked him to tell Bruce he’s missed.

  
  


Monday is Clark’s first day with Bruce at work. It isn’t as lonely as he thought it would be, but perhaps that’s because Alfred and Titus have taken it upon themselves to make sure Clark feels welcome.

After Bruce kisses Clark goodbye in the morning, Clark retreats to his study, only to doodle useless, meaningless things into his notebook. He’s still so—so horribly uninspired and he hates it. Here he is in this big house, surrounded by ghosts, and yet he can’t find it in himself to write a story about them.

Clark lasts an hour before he hears scratching at his door and finds Titus with his red ball in his mouth, asking to play. And so Clark spends the rest of the morning in the garden, watching Titus run around and play under the gentle warmth of morning sunlight.

The two ghosts he saw the other night haven’t come out again, but Clark suspects they’re watching nonetheless. He doesn’t think they trust him yet, but now they know that he can see them, that he can hear them, and it’s up to them to decide whether they should talk to him or not. Clark will give them the space they need to make that decision.

Lunch is beef bourguignon courtesy of Alfred, scraps of which are fed to Titus under the table despite Alfred’s disapproving looks. After that, somehow, Alfred pulls him into making an apple pie that makes the kitchen smell more like home. Clark’s forced to sit out on making dinner though, but he thinks it’s less because Alfred’s gotten sick of him and more because Titus chooses that time to wake up from his afternoon nap and he needs someone to play with.

Bruce comes home that night to a hug that lasts longer than it should, but it’s only because neither he nor Clark really want to let go, not until Alfred politely clears his throat and says that dinner is ready.

Once Alfred is out of earshot though, Clark leans in for a kiss. It’s short, chaste, but it’s enough.

“I missed you,” Clark says, and where he’s holding both of Bruce’s wrists, he feels the  _ thud-thud-thud  _ of Bruce’s heartbeat. “Welcome home.”

Bruce smiles at him, so warm and so bright that it feels like Clark is melting. “I’m home.”

Clark feels his heart constrict in his chest.  _ I’m home _ . Clark wants to believe that he’s just as much home as it is the Wayne estate.

“Come on,” he says. He shifts his hold on Bruce, tangles their fingers together. “Alfred worked hard on our dinner.”

“Wait. I have something to tell you,” Bruce says.

Clark glances back at him, finds a happy little smile on his lips.

“Well, are you going to tell me?” Clark asks, smiling right back.

Bruce stops, reaches for Clark’s other hand. They stand in the hallway under the light of the chandelier hanging above them.

“Perry finally got back to me today,” Bruce says, and  _ oh _ . “It’s official. He liked your work, Clark. You and Lois are going to be published by the Atlantic and Wayne Publishing.”

Clark’s grin is wide and bright when he wraps his arms around Bruce for another hug.

“That’s so good to hear, Bruce,” he says. He turns his head so he can press a kiss to Bruce’s cheek, but Bruce has the same idea apparently, because their lips meet in a kiss instead.

“We should celebrate,” Bruce says. “I’ll have Alfred serve us wine tonight.”

“Oh, and we should invite Lois over soon! She hasn’t been by since before our wedding,” Clark says.

“Yes, of course. Anything you want, my Clark,” Bruce says, and he pulls away enough that he can take Clark’s hand and kiss it.

_ My Clark _ . His. Bruce’s. This is where he belongs now, in this enormous manor with its locked rooms and its ghosts. With Bruce. Clark finds that he doesn’t mind the thought of it.

Clark cups Bruce’s jaw in his hand, holds him close so their foreheads touch and their breaths mingle between them. Bruce smells like the office coffee his new secretary now allows him two cups more than Ma would ever let him drink per day.

“Thank you for believing in me, my Bruce,” Clark says.

“Of course,” Bruce answers, and Clark hears  _ always _ .

  
  


The next day, Jason and Duke stare at Clark for a few good minutes before Clark finally gets sick of it and starts the conversation that they refuse to. He marks his place in the book he’s trying and failing to read, keeps his thumb in between the pages when he looks up at them, an eyebrow raised.

“Good morning,” he says. “I’m Clark.”

“We know,” Jason says, which Clark has no idea how to respond to.

“What are you reading?” Duke asks, which is much, much easier to tackle.

“Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian,” Clark says, holding it up so the boys can see the engraved details on the spine. “My best friend recommended it to me. Have you read it before?”

“No. I don’t really read a lot of fiction,” Duke says. “I’m working through the encyclopedias, you see.”

“A worthy endeavor, I’m sure,” Clark says. Impressive too, he thinks. He tries not to wonder how far Duke got before he died. Instead, he turns to Jason, asks him, “What about you?”

Jason frowns. “What about me?”

Clark smiles, patient. “Do you like to read fiction?”

“Yes, I do,” Jason says, and for a moment, he puffs up, as if daring Clark to say anything about it. Then, Jason sags, all his fight seeping out of him until he’s left there, arms crossed over his chest and peering at Clark. “Is it true you’re a writer?”

“I am.”

“Well, you haven’t done a lot of writing since you moved in here,” Jason says, startling a laugh out of Clark. He doesn’t know what he was expecting Jason to say, but it’s definitely not this. They must be watching Clark more than he thought, and that’s—well. Somehow, since Clark moved into Bruce’s home, this is the first time that he really, truly realizes that these ghosts are Bruce’s children, his  _ family _ , and Clark needs to impress them just as much as he desperately wants Alfred to like him.

It isn’t just a one-way street anymore where Clark simply observes. It’s different now, he thinks. The ghosts he’s seen before have always been transfixed, always been focused on one single point. Clark can count on one hand the number of times he’s spoken with a ghost and actually gotten somewhere with it.

This isn’t the same. These children talk to him, converse with him, and he thinks it’s because Bruce brought him home, made him part of their family. If Clark closes his eyes, imagines the children from the portrait instead of the shadows they are now, he can almost believe they’re alive.

“Jason, stop being so rude,” Duke says, like he’s one second away from pulling his own hair out. “If Alfred can hear you now—”

“In case you forgot, he can’t,” Jason says, which should have been the end of that, Clark thinks, but Duke doesn’t back down like he expects.

Instead, Duke raises an eyebrow at Jason, says, “Just because Alfred can’t hear us, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be disappointed.”

Jason huffs, turns away from Duke so he can glare at Clark instead. “So, what’s your problem? You just stare at your notebook for hours.”

Clark hums, says, “No, I suppose I haven’t written anything yet since I came here. But that’s why I’m reading again, in case I get inspired for my next novel.”

Jason narrows his eyes at Clark. “Great. Good luck, I guess.”

Well. Clark’s beginning to think that Jason’s only prickly by principle. 

“Thank you, Jason,” he says, and somehow, he isn’t even surprised by what Jason says next.

“You’re probably not as good as Shakespeare though.”

Clark doesn’t think he could have helped the grin that stretches across his lips even if he tried. “No, I’m sure I’m not.”

The boys have nothing more to say about that, it seems, because a few beats of silence pass. Clark’s stomach sinks. He doesn’t want them to disappear yet, doesn’t want to miss this chance because he has no idea when one of the kids will come out and talk to him next.

So Clark scrambles for something to say, ends up asking, “Would you like to read with me?”

But instead of agreeing, Duke and Jason only stand there, so still that Clark has to wonder for a moment if they’re really still there. He opens his mouth, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Duke gets there first.

“You’d really let us?” he asks.

Clark blinks.

“Of course I would. You’re always welcome to join me, and any of your siblings as well.”

“We used to read before, but it would scare Alfred whenever he walked in on us with our books out or whenever we forgot to put them back in the shelf,” Duke says, quiet. He pauses, then, “Bruce—he never took it well either.”

Clark clenches his jaw, tries not to give into the urge to clench his fists because he’s still holding The Italian in his hand.

“Well, as long as I’m here, you don’t have to worry about that,” Clark says. He means it. If he has to read an entire set of encyclopedias and all of Shakespeare’s works to make sure he can back himself up when someone asks him about the children’s books, he will.

It’s a small thing really, but it’s all they have, all they want, and Clark is the only person who can hear them out and do something about it.

“Go and pick out your books,” Clark says, his smile encouraging. “I’ll be here until lunch.”

“Thank you, Mr. Clark,” Duke says, and his voice is laced with childish excitement that makes Clark’s heart hurt and his chest warm at the same time. Duke immediately runs off to the shelves, near the bottom where the encyclopedias are.

Jason, though, hesitates.

“You aren’t so bad, I guess,” he says, and Clark tries not to let show how good it feels to actually have his approval, no matter how understated.

“You’re welcome,” Clark says instead, and then he watches as Jason joins his brother.

Clark reads with them the whole morning, and comes back even after lunch.

  
  


Lois comes to visit on a Thursday afternoon with an envelope containing her new novel’s first draft tucked under her arm. It’s a follow-up to the novel she sent the Atlantic, though not a direct sequel.

It’s good, Clark thinks, that Lois can be so optimistic and have so much inspiration and drive to write this novel in record time. Usually, in the middle of writing her first draft, she’d come to Clark’s door with a pound cake and a bottle of wine, and then they’d spend the rest of the day and most of the night commiserating, whining about how hard it is to finish a novel.

She and Clark can be quick to write when they’re feeling especially inspired, can spend hours upon hours writing non-stop when they have their momentum going, but when they burn out, they can spend up to weeks and months writing at a snail’s pace. They aren’t always in the same place when writing, but they’re good at supporting each other, good at figuring out what the other person needs. Clark thinks it’s why of all the authors under their old publishing house, they picked each other, managed to stick with each other until now.

“You don’t need to read it right away,” she says.

“No, it’s fine. I haven’t even started writing yet,” Clark says. “I’ll read it later, I promise.”

Lois breathes out a sigh, relieved. She seems really excited about this one, and maybe that’s only because she likes what she’s written, but Clark also thinks the fact that the first one is getting published is freeing for her. She isn’t limited anymore by the whims of a conservative publisher who won’t let her write about what she wants despite her talent and the following she’s garnered with her past work.

Clark should really feel the same way, but now that he has the opportunity to write what he wants, it’s like he’s hit a block. He knows the starting point and the ending point, but he doesn’t know the steps in between, doesn’t know which way to go, which choices to make.

He thinks that if anyone could understand how he’s feeling right now, it would be Lois, and even if she can only understand a fraction of what he hopes, it’s better than sitting around all day, staring at blank sheets of paper.

So Clark asks, and Lois doesn’t disappoint.

“You’re overthinking it,” she says. “You’re too concerned with the fantastical and metaphorical aspect of it when you shouldn’t be. You’re the one who keeps telling me you want to write a story with ghosts in it instead of a ghost story, aren’t you? So find your story and then figure out how to add your ghosts in later.”

When Lois says it like that, it seems so simple. Clark has always taken from real life, has always told stories that people have actually lived, and this shouldn’t be so different.

Clark thinks of a man who has lost so much, who hasn’t let himself wither away even years later, hasn’t let it change him into a cruel, hateful version of himself when others would have given themselves up long ago. Clark thinks of all his children who stay with him until now, even though he has no idea that they do.

He thinks  _ this is what he wants to write about.  _ Tragedy, but also recovery. Losing family, losing love and happiness, but also finding the way back no matter how long it takes.

And more than anything, he wants to write about Bruce, wants to immortalize and honor Bruce who has come into Clark’s life and lifted him up, who makes it seem so effortless, making Clark happy, reminding him there’s more to look forward to, more to do, more to love, just  _ more _ . He wants to return the favor, to show Bruce that he’s loved, that he isn’t alone and has never been.

For the first time in weeks, Clark feels an itch under his skin, feels the urge to write and write until he finally has something tangible in his hands to express everything that he feels.

A love letter to Bruce, Clark thinks. That’s what he wants to write.

“Lois,” Clark breathes. “ _ Thank you _ .”

“You’re welcome,” Lois says, patting Clark’s shoulder good-naturedly. “You can pay me back by letting me be the first to read your draft.”

“When has that ever not been the case?” Clark says, rolling his eyes. Ma may have read snippets of his drafts before they were finished, but it has always been Lois who read his finished first drafts.

“Well, now that you have a husband—”

Lois cuts herself off, dissolving into giggles at Clark’s expense.

Clark groans, barely stops himself from hiding his face between his hands. He feels his cheeks warm, knows he must be so, so red, but hiding from Lois has never been the solution to any of his problems. Instead, he stands his ground, says, “Lois,  _ no _ .”

“Sorry, sorry,” Lois says, waving her hands in front of her. “I know. I’m your best friend and your only friend who’s a writer and you’d never dream of showing anyone else unless I think it’s good. Especially not Bruce.”

“Especially not the person who I’m writing about,” Clark agrees.

Lois raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes,” Clark says. “ _ Yes _ . I’ve never been more sure of anything until this moment. I want to write about him. I want him to read it and know how I see him.”

“And what do you see, Clark?” Lois asks.

“A man who’s loved,” Clark answers, and that’s that.

Lois says goodbye with a reassurance that Clark doesn’t need to read her draft right away, and Clark is left with his heart bursting in his chest, ready to spill over onto paper.

  
  


Clark writes. He writes and writes and doesn’t stop writing.

He doesn’t know how many sheets of paper he’s gone through, how many hours he’s spent bent over his desk. He only stops to rest his hand, sleep, and eat. The first one is something Clark cannot help, the second is something only Bruce can coax him into, and the third is something that Alfred has to remind him to do, which isn’t an easy task at all.

Bruce seems to know exactly what to do, only has to wrap his arms around Clark, whisper in his ear and ask him how his novel is going, and immediately, he has Clark melting into him. Instead of answering, Clark leaves his study, leaves his pages’ worth of prose about Bruce and settles into his Bruce’s arms instead. It’s overwhelming, all-consuming, and Clark loves it. Every hour, every minute of his days are now spent thinking about Bruce, with Bruce held close to his chest, and it’s the most alive, most inspired Clark has felt in a while.

Alfred, on the other hand, has the bad luck of having to urge Clark away from his study when he’s at the peak of his momentum. Everyday, without exception, when the clock strikes noon, Alfred comes into his study and announces that lunch is ready. He has experience with Bruce, which Clark thinks is the only reason Alfred hasn’t already run out of patience.

Still, Clark isn’t always receptive.

On his tenth chapter, already so close to the end, Clark doesn’t notice Alfred in the room with him until a chill wraps itself around his heart. It feels like his blood is ice in his veins, feels worse than what Clark imagines walking into the ocean feels like on a winter night because it’s  _ inside _ him. He startles, almost falls from his seat when he turns around and sees Cassandra frowning at him, her hand in his chest.

“Don’t make Alfred wait,” Cassandra says simply, and slowly, Clark’s focus resettles and he notices Alfred standing behind her.

“Alfred,” Clark starts, eyes wide, still clutching his pen in his hand. “I apologize. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Alfred raises an eyebrow. Clark barely keeps himself from groaning.

“I need to freshen up, but I promise I’ll be at the table, Alfred,” Clark says. To prove it, he puts down his pen and arranges the papers on his desk into some semblance of  _ organized _ that other people might understand.

When he looks back at Alfred, he has the satisfaction of seeing Alfred’s expression morph into one of poorly hidden fondness.

“Of course, Master Clark. I’ll see you downstairs in ten minutes,” he says.  _ Or else _ , he doesn’t say, but Clark knows Alfred will be very disappointed if he doesn’t stay true to his word, and disappointing Alfred is one of the things Clark would never want to do even unintentionally.

Alfred leaves, closing the door with a soft click, and Clark is left alone with Cassandra.

“Thank you,” he says, to which Cassandra only shrugs and disappears.

Clark lets out a breath, gets up. He stops by the washroom downstairs like he said he would, and then he moves onto the dining area where Alfred’s already laid out his lunch on the table. He spends a good ten minutes eating, quick and efficient, itching to get back upstairs and write again. Alfred will frown at him if he eats too quickly though, so Clark spends the next ten minutes staring into space and drinking so much water that there’s only an inch-deep left in the pitcher when Clark finally takes his dishes into the kitchen.

Alfred puts down the newspaper he’s reading when Clark comes in, and he immediately puts his apron on and starts washing the dishes. Usually, Clark would thank him for the meal and go right back upstairs, but there’s a phantom ache in his chest where Cassandra’s hand was that screams at Clark to apologize again.

So he does.

“It’s quite alright, Master Clark. Believe me when I say you aren’t the worst I’ve had to deal with,” Alfred says. Then, Alfred pauses, turns around to look at him. “How is your writing going, if I may ask?”

Clark smiles. “It’s going well! I haven’t hit a block yet, and I suppose that’s all I can ask for.”

“That’s good to hear, Master Clark,” Alfred says. He finally turns back to the sink, picking up the cup Clark just used and scrubbing at it under some water. “I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out.”

“Oh, you don’t need to wait until then, Alfred,” Clark says, waving a hand dismissively even if Alfred can’t see it. “You’re more than welcome to read my final draft when I get to that point.”

Alfred looks over his shoulder, flashes Clark a small smile. “I think I’ll still appreciate having my own copy for my collection, but thank you. I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer, Master Clark.”

Clark can’t help but smile back, and it stays on his lips until he’s back in his study, ready for another afternoon of writing.

  
  


Clark finishes his first draft on a Friday night. Or, depending on who’s asked, a Saturday morning.

Clark has tried to pace himself the entire time he’s been working on this particular novel, only writing from the time Bruce leaves to the time he arrives, resting otherwise. But, only a few pages and a few thousand words away from the end, Clark begs off coming to bed that night.

“We’ll spend as much time together as you want tomorrow, I promise. We can let Titus out to play in the morning, and then we can take a bath together before lunch,” Clark says, and because Bruce has been wanting to teach him how to play chess since he found out on their first picnic together that Clark has never played it before, he continues, “Maybe if I feel like it, I’ll let you convince me to partake in a game of chess.”

“You didn’t need to bribe me like that,” Bruce says, and Clark can feel his smile when Bruce presses a kiss onto his temple. His arms are around Clark’s shoulders, holding him close until he pulls away, slow, reluctant. “I’ll miss you in bed tonight.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Clark says, looking up at Bruce with a smile of his own. Then, he looks at Titus, sitting at his feet like he has been all afternoon and awaiting scratches that Clark doesn’t hesitate to give him.

“You’ll take care of Bruce for me, won’t you, boy?” he says. Titus barks, and Clark’s smile widens. “Yes, you will, because you’re  _ such  _ a good boy, Titus.”

“If I were a lesser man, I might have gotten jealous of Titus by now,” Bruce says, and when Titus perks up at the sound of his name, Clark doesn’t stop him from trotting over to Bruce, who welcomes him with a scratch behind his ears.

“You’re a  _ little  _ bit jealous,” Clark teases.

“Perhaps,” Bruce allows, “but it’s your turn to be jealous tonight when I fall asleep hugging Titus.”

“Which is why I’ll make sure to wake you tomorrow morning and remind you who your husband is,” Clark says. He allows his voice to drop, allows his lips to twist into an approximation of a smirk, and he’s rewarded by the sight of Bruce’s eyes darkening, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenches his teeth.

“I’ll look forward to it,” Bruce says. He leans in for one last kiss good night, soft and lingering, and then he’s gone, Titus at his heels.

It takes Clark a while to recover, but he does, and he slips back into his writing like he hadn’t even stopped in the first place. And writing the ending to this novel—it’s cathartic almost, freeing. The Bruce in this novel starts out with loneliness in his heart and all these ghosts around him, but in the end, after he’s let go of his ghosts one by one, after he’s moved on from the tragedy of his past little by little, he’s found hope again, hope for happiness, hope for love, hope for more from his life that he doesn’t find as lonely as he did before.

It’s an optimistic ending, much like Clark’s other novels have, but instead of an escape from reality, this is a possibility, a simmering want Clark holds close to his chest that burns brighter the more Clark thinks about it. Clark wants so badly to show it to Bruce. He has doubts of course, niggling slivers of doubt that he packs away to the back of his mind because he wants to be selfish, just wants Bruce to know how Clark sees him.

Clark’s hands shake when he finally puts down his pen, and he finds himself staring at the last few words for a moment before he finally shakes himself off. He arranges his papers into a neat stack, and then he gets up finally after hours of slouching in his seat, stretches until his joints pop and the ache in his lower back eases.

It’s half-past five, which means that soon enough Alfred will be getting up and starting breakfast and that Clark has more than enough time to make himself a cup of coffee before he can believably wake Bruce up and not have his husband try to disappear under his blanket.

Clark tiptoes all the way to the kitchen, manages to work the French press from vague recollections of Alfred using it, and then he tiptoes all the way out the front door.

The sky is a dusty blue this time in the morning, with hints of oranges and yellows on the sparse clouds scattered above. Clark settles himself on a bench in the garden, thankful for the cup of coffee that’s warming his fingers because he only has his thin dress shirt and pants to protect him from the morning chill.

Halfway through his coffee, he notices Richard sitting next to him.

“I read your novel,” Richard says. Clark hums, knowing better than to ask how or when or  _ why _ . “I thought it was good.”

Clark breathes deep. The cold air feels like ice after his last sip of coffee.

“That’s good to hear,” he says. Richard’s a part of the book after all.

“You really do love him, don’t you?”

Clark chokes on his coffee, spills half of what’s left on himself. The brown of the coffee is almost mild compared to the black smudges of ink already on his shirt, but he knows it’ll be unpleasant after it dries.

Still, it seems a little insignificant compared to what Richard has just said.

“What? Richard—”

“Clark,” Richard says, cutting him off. There’s amusement clear in his voice that helps Clark calm down enough to lean back against the bench and breathe.

Clark has poured himself into this novel, has written Bruce as he sees him. He supposes it isn’t such a stretch for Richard to be able to say that after reading Clark’s novel over his shoulder for the past few days.

“Yes,” Clark says, because there’s no other answer to Richard’s question but this. He started out with the possibility of it, started out with a hopeful  _ maybe,  _ but now, “Yes, I love him.”

“I want him to be happy,” Richard says. When he turns to Clark, the lines of his face look almost distinct under the sunlight. “Do you really think that we’re preventing that?”

“No! What makes you think—” Clark cuts himself off. He knows why, knows because he’s the one who used the children as a metaphor for Bruce’s past, the one who wrote an ending where Bruce needed to accept his past and let go. Clark  _ knows _ , but he hadn’t meant it the way Richard is saying. “It’s only a metaphor. I don’t actually know what’s keeping you here, Richard.”

It’s a weak attempt and Clark knows it, has to watch Richard sag like he has a weight on his shoulders he doesn’t deserve.

“I used to think it was to protect him,” Richard says, “and then I thought it was so he wouldn’t be lonely, but now—now, I don’t know. He doesn’t even know we’re here, so how are we ever supposed to do anything?”

Clark bites his lower lip, keeps quiet because he can see there’s something more, something else Richard wants to say.

“I was one of the first to die, did you know that? I was there from the start. I thought I could protect them from  _ him _ , but obviously that didn’t happen. I had to watch all my siblings die, and I had to watch my father break and break and break again. I thought we’d move on after the Joker was stopped, but we’re still here, aren’t we?” Richard continues. He sighs, leans back against the bench, eyes trained up towards the sky. “Bruce has gotten better now that he has you, but we’ve had to watch him cry for us so many times, Clark.”

“Well, do you  _ want  _ him to know about you?” Clark asks, because if that’s what the children need, then Clark has no problem telling Bruce, will do whatever he can to convince Bruce of their existence.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Richard sighs. There isn’t any pressure when he leans into Clark’s side, but Clark feels the cold of it. “He’ll beat himself up, but what if that’s what it’ll take for him to move on?”

They won’t know what will happen in the long run unless they tell Bruce, but telling Bruce might hurt him, even if only at the start. Clark knows that reading his novel will be different because Bruce won’t be reading it thinking it’s reality, but maybe—maybe it’ll make it easier.

“You know I’ll help you if you need me to, don’t you, Richard?” Clark says. “If you think he needs to know, then I’ll help you tell him.”

“I won’t have you risk your relationship with him,” Richard says, firm and without hesitation. “If I weren’t here right now, I wouldn’t believe it either.”

“We’re married. He can’t get rid of me that easily,” Clark says, but it’s hard to muster up a smile. “I think that he’d want you to be able to move on. If he knew, he wouldn’t want you to be stuck here, and I feel the same way, Richard. You and your siblings, you don’t deserve to be limited to this existence. You deserve to move on.”

“We’ve been here for so long,” Richard whispers, so quiet that Clark almost doesn’t hear it.

“I know,” Clark says. “I know, Richard.”

He doesn’t ask again. He doesn’t have to.

  
  


Bruce finishes reading Clark’s first draft all in one sitting. Clark is asleep for a good chunk of it, but he’s by Bruce’s side the whole time. The first thing Bruce does is kiss Clark. His hand is tentative against Clark’s jaw but his lips are devastating, their kiss soft and lingering.

“It’s beautiful, Clark,” Bruce says. “You know them so well.”

And this is it. This is the tipping point. Clark feels the hair on the back of his head stand, feels Richard’s hand on his shoulder and the other children just behind them. There is no better time to tell Bruce the truth than now, and so Clark does.

“I do,” Clark says. “I do know them. I can see them, Bruce, just like in the novel.”

But Bruce doesn’t take it well. His eyebrows furrow and his jaw clenches. His hands are shaking when he pulls them away from Clark’s skin.

“Clark, if this is a joke—”

Clark cuts him off right away, waving his hands in front of him as he says, “It isn’t! It isn’t, Bruce. I wouldn’t do that to you. Please believe me.”

Bruce pulls away even further, going as far as to get up from their bed entirely. He paces across the floor, hands fisted at his sides, shoulders tight.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Clark,” he says, and no, Clark supposes he wouldn’t know what to say either.

“I—you don’t have to say anything,” Clark says. He scrambles for something else to say, something to convince Bruce, to make him  _ see _ , and just like that, it’s like a dam has opened. Clark opens his mouth and his words flow out of it, but it feels delayed, like his mouth is working quicker than his brain and he can’t catch up no matter how hard he tries. “I’ve been able to see ghosts since I was a child. Damian was the first of your children that I saw. He and Stephanie like to play with Titus. Jason and Duke like to read with me in the library. Timothy likes to spend time in your study and Cassandra likes to follow Alfred around the house. I don’t know where Richard is half of the time, but he likes to read over my shoulder when I write. Bruce, they love you  _ so  _ much.”

Bruce stops at the foot of the bed, his palms pressed against his eyes. “Clark, please—”

Clark’s stomach sinks. He shouldn’t have said all that, should have eased into it, should’ve backed off for now. His heart breaks seeing Bruce so obviously shaken, and he pleads, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Bruce.”

Clark wants to wrap his arms around Bruce, wants to hold him until they both stop shaking. Clark pays for his mistake.

“I need some time alone,” Bruce says, and  _ oh _ .

Clark swallows around the lump in his throat. “Of course. I’ll leave you alone,” he says, and the words leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

He wars with himself for a moment, wanting to reach out and touch Bruce. He doesn’t, in the end.

When he leaves, the last thing he says is, “I love you, Bruce. I’m sorry.”

  
  


Richard follows Clark out to the garden.

“We expected this,” he says, “It’s going to be alright, Clark. We just have to give him time.”

There’s a pain in Clark’s chest that makes it hard to breathe. He went outside thinking the fresh air would help, but he feels like his throat is closing up, like he’s one moment away from blacking out. But he can’t. He  _ can’t _ . He clenches his fists, focuses on the white of his knuckles and the sound of his heartbeat in his ears until he remembers how to breathe.

When he speaks, his words are garbled.

“Is it really that simple?” he asks, even though he already knows what Richard will say. He’s said it himself, and he knows they’re right, but in this moment, away from a Bruce who has asked him to leave him alone, it feels  _ wrong wrong wrong _ .

“It’s what we needed to do.”

“I know,” Clark says. “I’m sorry. I know that, but seeing him like that—it was hard.”

“It always is,” Richard says, and  _ oh _ . Suddenly, the last few minutes of Clark’s life seem inconsequential compared to the years Richard and the rest of the children have had to spend watching their father suffer and being unable to do anything about it. It shifts things back into focus, and now Clark remembers why he’s done what he has.

Clark pulls himself together, breathes out all of the turbulent emotions swimming in his lungs until he’s left with a simmering storm tamped down into a manageable hum in the back of his mind.

But—

It doesn’t seem to matter much in the end.

Clark can only stare at Alfred’s unreadable expression and the bag that he’s holding at his side.

“Alfred?” Clark says, and his voice barely comes out as a whisper, sounds more like a plea than anything else. He knows what it must mean, but he doesn’t want to believe that this is the extent to which Bruce meant  _ leave _ . 

“He’s asked me to pack a bag for you,” Alfred says, and it  _ hurts _ all over again.

“What?” Richard says. He turns to Clark, panic spilling from his voice, “Clark, you aren’t going to let Bruce throw you out, are you?”

Clark ignores him, instead choosing to take the bag from Alfred, holding it in front of him with his shaking hands.

“I’m sorry for the trouble, Alfred,” he says.

“Clark, don’t do this. Don’t leave us,” Richard says, but Clark doesn’t have much of a choice, does he? Bruce has asked for space, and so Clark will let him have it. He’ll come back if it’s what Bruce wants, and then he’ll try again. He’ll try his very best for Bruce to change his mind, to accept the reality of his children, of course he will, but for now, this is what he must do.

“Thank you for being kind to me, Alfred,” Clark says.

“If it’s any consolation, Master Clark, there have been many times when I felt Master Bruce and I weren’t truly alone in this house,” Alfred says, and it should feel like a crucial revelation, but now, it only feels like the last-minute attempt at comfort that it is.

“I’ll see you soon,” Clark says, just as much for Richard as it is for Alfred, and then he walks away, leaves.

He feels eyes on him all the way to the estate’s gate.


	4. on a long drive from the back seat

Clark tells Lois everything.

She reads his draft, listens to his clipped responses, figures out enough that Clark think,  _ why not _ ? So he lays it all out for her, from the start to the end, and he thinks,  _ this is how I would have wanted to tell Bruce _ .

And he will. Somehow, someday, he will. Even if Bruce doesn’t take him back as a husband, Clark made a promise to help Bruce’s children and he doesn’t intend on breaking his word.

“I’ve always wondered why you were so fascinated by ghosts,” Lois says. “I won’t say this is what I expected, but I suppose it makes sense.”

Clark doesn’t reply, doesn’t really know what to say or have the energy to even think of something to say.

“What are you going to do?” Lois asks.

“Wait,” Clark says.

Lois takes this in stride, nods. “Well, you can stay here while you wait.”

And Clark does.

He uses the time to finally read Lois’ draft, but that only takes the better part of a day, so he lets Lois drag him outside to try and distract him. But however busy he is during the day, he’s left to his own devices at night.

The first morning, when he walks out of the guest room looking like he hasn’t slept a wink, Lois frowns at him, refuses to let him drink any coffee that day or go to bed that night without drinking warm milk and soaking in the bath until he’s tricked his body into enough drowsiness that his mind slows down with it.

Clark thinks that if it weren’t for Lois, he wouldn’t have survived more than a day without lapsing into silence and spiralling, going down unhealthy, futile trains of thought. He lets himself rely on her, lets her take some of the weight on his shoulders because it’s easier, because she’s his best friend for a reason. He’d do the same for her.

While Lois is perfectly alright spending this much time with Clark, her father is much less. General Lane doesn’t quite dislike Clark’s presence so much as remains painfully indifferent to it, but Clark knows not to take it personally. Still, it makes dinners at the Lane household just a little bit awkward, with Lois carrying most of the conversation while General Lane and Clark hardly address each other.

Clark can see it frustrates Lois, but there’s really nothing to be done about it. He and General Lane have always had this kind of relationship, which is to say not much of a relationship at all, but Clark thinks it’s less because he thinks Clark is good-for-nothing and more because the only people General Lane cares about are his two daughters.

But after a week of stilted dinner conversations, General Lane comes home an hour later than usual, only to say that he needs to leave right away.

“You haven’t had to work outside your hours for a while,” Lois says, eyebrows furrowed, her voice laced with worry. General Lane is older now, more likely to be found signing papers behind a desk 8-to-5 like every other office worker and throwing orders down the chain than anything else, but there are some times, rare they may be, that he has to work overtime. “What is it this time?”

“One of the high-profile prisoners in Arkham got out. The police want to pull out all the stops so they’re asking for our help. I might not come home until this blows over,” General Lane says. He’s waiting for one of their maids to finish packing an overnight bag for him, and while she’s upstairs doing that, he fixes his tie in front of the mirror, only just visible through the doorway from where Clark and Lois are seated around the dining table.

Lois perks up, eyebrows raised. “Who got out?”

“The Joker. Multiple counts of homicide, kidnapping, torture, and arson just to name a few. Not a pleasant man, which is why the police want this done quick,” General Lane says, but Clark barely hears anything past  _ the Joker _ .

Clark’s blood runs cold. His chair topples over when he gets up, but he can’t find himself to care when all he can think of is that he needs to get to Bruce as quickly as he can.

“Take my car, Clark,” Lois says.

Clark almost stops breathing because  _ yes _ , this is better, quicker than looking for a cab on a Friday night and he is going to owe Lois so much after this but he’ll gladly give her anything she asks for if it means that he gets to Bruce before the Joker does.

“Lois,  _ thank you _ ,” he says.

“What is this about?” General Lane demands, but Clark pays him no mind. Lois can fill him in. Right now, what Clark needs to do is to go to Bruce, and so he does.

He drives as quickly as he can, even pushes the car to its limit when he reaches the less used roads leading out of the city center. Even then, it still feels like he’s moving at a snail’s pace. His heart doesn’t help him at all, beating too quickly, too erratically, and neither do his thoughts, coming faster than they’re going, filling his mind with horrible scenarios, bloody images of what he might find when he finally arrives at the Wayne estate.

But Clark doesn’t even manage to reach the estate before something happens.

One moment, the road is clear, and the next, there is a man standing in the middle of it, arms open wide and a huge grin stretched across his face. Clark only barely manages to avoid him, but it’s too sudden, too much for the car. The moment that the car tilts feels like a thousand years to Clark. He remembers holding onto the steering wheel, remembers hearing laughter, grating, chilling, remembers his heart sinking because this could be no one else but the man Clark should be avoiding, the man who killed children, the man who broke Bruce.

“You don’t look like a copper, do you?” the Joker says, and Clark barely registers the words when his temple feels like it’s going to split open at any moment.

The Joker turns Clark’s body with his foot and then he presses down on Clark’s neck, just hard enough that it’s hard for him to breathe.

“Well? It’s bad manners not to answer when you’re asked a question, you know. The guards at Arkham made sure all of us little rat prisoners knew that, made sure we were  _ grateful _ ,” the Joker says. His smile, somehow, turns even more manic. “I was so grateful I gave them all a knife to the head!”

Clark wants to block out the sound of his laugh, wants to erase the image of his rotting yellow teeth all out in the open as he laughs and laughs and keeps on laughing. But the only thing he can do is close his eyes and breathe.

In, out, in, out—

  
  


Clark comes to with his face buried in dirt.

He registers the ache in his legs first. They’re throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and he doesn’t have to move to know they feel like they’ve been rubbed raw. Next, he registers the sound of a voice, high and rasping, words too quick for Clark to properly process when he’s still blinking away dark spots in his eyes. Clark remembers an eerie laugh, a too-wide grin, and he shivers.

Clark braces himself, tries to move, finds that it only makes everything hurt more than it already does.

But the choice is made for him, because he feels himself being dragged up and onto his feet. There’s an arm wrapped tightly around his neck, another one pinning his arms to his sides. He hears a rasping breath right next to his ear that sends a shiver throughout his body, and Clark tries to fight it, but the Joker has already noticed.

“Awake now, are you?” Clark feels the arm around his neck loosen only to feel the press of a cold blade into his skin. “Brucie! You’re just in time. I wanted so bad to let your darling husband bleed out on the road, but I thought you’d want to see him. Bleed out, that is.”

Clark doesn’t know what he was expecting of the Joker, but this even worse than anything he could have imagined. There’s something inherently sinister about him, something that makes Clark’s knees buckle and his stomach twist with terror. He isn’t like Clark’s ghosts, who are cold, angry, despairing. He is evil incarnate, spouting out nonsense for the sake of chaos.

Fear the living and not the dead. Clark has had plenty opportunity to learn that over the years, but he doesn’t think he has felt it’s truth more than he does now.

“Let him go,” Bruce says, and there’s so much in his eyes when he looks at Clark. Sadness, regret, dread. Clark thought he’d seen the worst before he left, but this is worse, makes his heart ache even more.

“No  _ hello,  _ no  _ I missed you _ ? I’m hurt,” the Joker says.

“Let him go,” Bruce repeats, his eyes hard.

“Oh, Brucie. You should know by now that asking won’t help,” the Joker says, taunting. Always taunting. Clark wonders how often Bruce still hears it in his nightmares.

To think that this is the madman who tormented Bruce, who hasn’t stopped tormenting Bruce until now—it makes Clark sick, makes him  _ angry _ . He wonders what Bruce has done to deserve this, wonders what it is about him that the Joker noticed and pushed him to decide  _ this is the man I want to see suffer _ .

Perhaps it’s Bruce’s duality, how he can be so gentle with people he cares about, how different he can be towards the people who’d think to harm those important to him. Perhaps it’s that Bruce is hard to break, no matter how many cracks he already has, how many hits he’s already taken.

Clark doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter.

“Then end this. Kill me. That  _ is  _ what you’ve been building up to all this time, isn’t it?” Bruce says, and this is a Bruce who would do anything for Clark, just like he would for Alfred, like he would have for his children. This is a Bruce that scares Clark, because this is a Bruce who just asked a murderer to kill him.

“Well, that wouldn’t be fun at all!” the Joker says, his voice going up in a whine. Clark feels a grin against ear, feels the sting when the blade against his neck breaks skin. “This is much better.”

Clark thinks that, sickeningly, he has one thing in common with the Joker. They want to see Bruce break, but where the Joker wants Bruce to bleed and cry, Clark wants to see Bruce reach into himself and break the walls that he’s built around the corner of his heart where he hides his children away.

But one is not conducive to the other, and so one of them has to go. The Joker means to get rid of him tonight, but Clark won’t lie down and let it happen. A little blood is nothing in the scheme of things if he could just get out of the Joker’s hold.

He feels the Joker pull him backwards before he hears the shot, sees Bruce’s eyes widen before he feels the glide of blood down his cheek.

In the corner of his eye, Clark sees the gray of Alfred’s hair peeking out from a window.

The Joker laughs and laughs and  _ laughs _ , smug and mocking.

“That won’t work,” he says. “Oh, Brucie, did you really think it would?”

Maybe if there was one lucky opening, one effective distraction. Maybe.

Then, Clark feels it. Hatred, pure hatred. Anger. Bloodlust. It makes Clark want to vomit, but he tamps it down, fights against the bile that rises in his throat because he’ll only choke on it, will only kill himself before he can do something about this situation. 

Under the light of the moon, face half-hidden in shadows, Bruce looks like the devil, like he’s crawled up from hell to the earth above looking to spill blood. But if Bruce looks like the devil, then the children look like his soldiers, death personified. They stand behind Bruce, lined up with their hands linked and their faces set, resolute. They’re the most human Clark has ever seen them, every line and every curve of their faces clear and distinct even under the meager light.

They are grim figures that belong to the night, like gargoyles that guard the Wayne estate come to life, and they’re here to protect what’s left of their family. They couldn’t do anything but watch all those years ago; it’s a different story now. Clark only needs to look at them once to know that if things are to go their way, neither Bruce nor Clark nor Alfred are going to die tonight.

Clark feels his nerves settle, feels his heartbeat slow to a crawl.

This ends tonight.

“It’s alright, Bruce,” Clark says.

Bruce’s eyebrows furrow, his arm in front of him, reaching out, and it’s all Clark can do to meet Bruce’s eyes, to hold his gaze, hope that he believes it.

“We’ll be alright,” Clark repeats.

He sees Bruce’s eyes widen, sees the shape of his name on Bruce’s lips before his vision blacks out and his whole body feels like it’s been submerged into freezing water. His knees buckle underneath him and suddenly, he’s free, falling to the ground. He feels the earth under his palms before he realizes that it isn’t his vision that’s gone black but his surroundings.

Clark can barely see the Joker underneath the dark figures that pin him to the ground, smothering his cries and keeping him in place, can barely see through the figures that surround himself, wrapped around him like they’re trying to protect him. He can’t tell which of the children are with him and which of them aren’t, but that doesn’t matter, doesn’t compare to the relief that swells in his chest, the vindictive satisfaction that curls in his throat, has him holding his breath as he watches, waits.

He barely feels the tugging on his shirt, but he does, and when he turns to check, he sees Bruce on his knees, staring wide-eyed at what must be an unbelievable, unexplainable thing. Clark wanted Bruce to believe him, wanted Bruce to accept it, be able to move on from it, but not like this. Not with them holding down the Joker, having to deal with the man who kidnapped them, killed them without mercy. 

And Clark—he hates this. He hates that the Joker has managed to escape from prison twice now, hates that there exists someone as evil, as cruel, as vile as him, hates that all these years have passed and yet Bruce and his children are still subject to his whims. Clark hates that he’s only sitting here, watching, waiting for something to happen, and so he forces himself to focus, forces himself to stand up, bridge the space between him and Bruce. Clark takes Bruce’s hand in his, holds on tight. He holds Bruce’s hand until Bruce sags against him, stays beside him as they watch the Joker flail around on the ground, groaning, choking under all the weight pushing down on him.

Belatedly, Clark realizes that the Joker is suffocating, really, truly suffocating, fighting for his life while they stand here and watch. But then he remembers Bruce beside him, unmoving, remembers everything the children have had to go through, have had to endure, and Clark doesn’t do a thing. Even when Alfred comes racing out of the manor only stop at the top of the steps, frozen, even when the Joker stops struggling, Clark doesn’t do anything but stay with Bruce.

It feels like he stands there for hours, feels like every beat of his heart takes a lifetime, but Clark manages to snap out of it, manages to hear over the blood rushing in his ears and notice the sound of police sirens in the air.

“That’s enough,” Clark says, and his voice is rough, but he feels their eyes on him, feels their attention. “Your father needs you now.”

Clark feels Bruce’s hold on him tighten, but when he turns to look at him, he finds Bruce with his free arm raised in front of him, reaching out. Clark’s heart jumps in his chest, his breath catching in his throat. 

“You can see them,” he whispers, quiet because he’s scared that it might not be true, terrified that perhaps even now, even after this entire awful, terrible night, Bruce won’t have anything concrete to convince him of his children. Clark is scared that Bruce finding out that his children really have been with him all this time, that they had to be the ones to deal with their own killer will only break Bruce’s heart further. 

“Bruce,” Richard says. He reaches out, as if to take Bruce’s hand in his, only to go through like mist. Clark sees his face fall, sees his eyebrows furrow when he realizes how he’s gone a little bit transparent along with his siblings, like they’re disappearing.

That doesn’t seem to matter to the others, though, because they crowd around Bruce anyway, sticking close enough that Bruce is shivering where he stands. They all cling to each other, staring up at their father with tears in their eyes, hope and tired relief in the lines of their faces.

Clark hears a gasp behind him, hears the clatter of metal hitting pavement. He doesn’t have to look to know that Alfred can now see them too.

They need time. So much has happened already tonight and having to deal with the police who are nearly at the gate might just be too much.

So Clark presses a kiss to Bruce’s temple, says, “Go back inside with Alfred and the children. I’ll deal with everything here.”

Bruce’s eyes are wide when he looks at Clark, unfocused, almost scared. Clark’s heart aches in his chest; he wants to go back in with them, wants to stay right by Bruce’s side, but he knows that he can’t. Instead, he wraps his arms around Bruce’s shoulders in one last embrace before he gently herds Bruce and an equally shaken Alfred back inside their home, all the while murmuring reassurances and making promises that he’ll be with them as soon as he can. 

The children follow them inside without complaint, though Cassandra does look back at Clark, nodding at him before she disappears behind the doors. Clark swallows past the lump growing in his throat, breathes deep and long. He gathers himself, organizes all the stray thoughts in his mind into something coherent.

The police are out of their cars and approaching the Joker’s body when Clark finally turns around to face them. General Lane is front and center, heading straight for Clark instead of stopping by the Joker like the others. 

“You look like hell, Kent,” General Lane says.

Clark  _ feels  _ like hell. His legs and his neck are throbbing, his eyes hard to focus, and he’s well on his way to a headache. Still, it doesn’t seem so important in the thick of things.

“I’m alright,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “Bruce and Alfred aren’t taking it so well, but they’re unharmed.”

General Lane raises an eyebrow. “You say that, but I know my daughter’s car, even if it’s crashed against a tree.”

Clark groans. Lois wasn’t by any means attached to her car, but it was still a  _ car _ , and it was gifted to her by her father on her birthday three years ago along with the fountain pens that she really wanted. Her father, who is right here, frowning at him.

“Oh god,” Clark says, wanting nothing more than to disappear, to turn back time and find some way to avoid crashing the car entirely. “I’m so sorry, General. I’ll make sure to pay you back, I swear.”

General Lane sighs.

“That’s not the problem, son,” he says. “The problem is that you look like you’ve been dragged through mud and blood. Even if your friends don’t need one, you need to see a doctor, Kent.”

Clark shifts his weight from one foot to another, barely resists the urge to look back at the manor. There’s nothing Clark wants more than to follow Bruce and Alfred inside and make sure they’re fine, but he understands where General Lane is coming from.

Still, a trip to the hospital would take much too longer than Clark would like.

“I’m sure Bruce has a doctor on-call,” Clark says eventually. “I’d really much rather stay here with Bruce and Alfred, General.”

General Lane considers him for a long, long moment until finally, he runs a hand through his hair and sighs once again.

“Let me get Commissioner Gordon for your statement,” he says. “We’ll have to step inside for a moment to check on Wayne and his butler, make sure you do have a doctor come over, but that’s it.”

Clark breathes out, relief crashing over him. A police statement. He can do that. He just hopes that by the time the police have to speak to Bruce and Alfred, they’re much more put together than they were a few minutes ago.

“That sounds good,” Clark says, and then he lets himself be pulled into the motions of seemingly unending questions, clarifications. It’s not horrible, not with Commissioner Gordon’s sympathetic eyes and gentle tone, but it still makes Clark uncomfortable, having to go back over this awful, dreadful night, having to remember how his heart raced as he rushed here, how his life was in the hands of a murderer, how the press of a blade felt as it drew blood from under his skin.

He has to lie a little bit of course. He knows enough that telling the police that it was ghosts who killed the Joker would only make them think that Clark needs to be carted off to an asylum. So he takes the blame, thinks that Bruce and Alfred will understand him for doing so. It’s not that big a deal anyway, because it can’t have been anything but self-defense and Commissioner Gordon obviously thinks so as well considering that Clark isn’t in handcuffs by the time he’s let go.

Soon enough, Clark is leading Commissioner Gordon into the manor. Clark asks him to wait in the hallway, and then he opens the door to the parlor, heart racing and braced for the worst.

“Bruce? Alfred?” he says, and as he looks around, he finds Bruce sitting on the settee facing away from the door, Alfred right beside him and his children surrounding him, eyes glued to his face like a sunflower follows the sun across the sky.

Bruce turns in his seat, looks back at Clark over his shoulder. His eyes are obviously red even from this distance, the lines of his face deep. He doesn’t look at all like he’s fine, but his shoulders aren’t the tense line they were before, and his eyes speak less of apprehension and uncertainty. He’s looking  _ better _ , which lifts a heavy weight off Clark’s chest, leaving only fluttering nerves so much more manageable than before.

“Clark,” Bruce says, voice hoarse and his tone gentle despite that. His eyes are soft, clear, enough that Clark can’t help but smile in his relief.

“The commissioner is here. He wants to talk to you,” Clark says. “He promises it’ll be quick.”

“Of course. Let him in.” Bruce stands up, but he hesitates, looks to his children, says, “We still have more to talk about, don’t we?”

“We do,” Richard says, and Clark can tell by his tone that he hasn’t missed the slight waver in Bruce’s voice either. “We’ll see you after the commissioner leaves.”

Even after the children hide themselves away, the room is still as cold as ice.

The commissioner doesn’t mention it though, neither does he acknowledge the evidence of tears and stress on Bruce and Alfred. Instead, he does what he needs to do, efficient as only one of his tenure could be. Only at the end does he reach for Bruce’s shoulder, squeezing.

“It’s over now, Bruce,” he says, and  _ oh _ , he must have already been with the police all those years ago, must have lived through the same thing Bruce did, must have been haunted by the law’s inability to keep the Joker in chains. It can’t have been easy, even if he hadn’t lost as much as Bruce.

“It’s over,” Bruce agrees.

Commissioner Gordon visibly relaxes, his shoulders slumping slightly as he breathes.

“Thank you for your time,” he says, nodding to Bruce, then Alfred, then Clark.

“I’ll show you out, Commissioner,” Alfred says, and so he does.

The door clicks as Alfred closes it behind him, leaving Bruce and Clark alone for the first time this night—the first time since Clark left the manor with just one bag and doubt clawing at his heart. Clark freezes for a moment, suddenly unsure of himself, of his place here, but it’s Bruce who makes a move first in the end. He closes the distance between them, goes to where Clark is standing, leaning against the piano.

Bruce doesn’t hesitate. He wraps his arms around Clark, buries his face in the crook of Clark’s neck.

“I love you,” he says, and those three words come crashing down on Clark. They’re a breath of fresh air after drowning, the warmth of sunlight on a cold winter’s day. Then, like water pulling back from the shore, crawling slowly away after having kissed the sand, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to believe you. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Clark says. “I understand. We’re alright.”

Clark settles his hands on Bruce’s waist, holding on tightly. He prepares himself for his next words, prepares himself to cross this bridge even greater, more meaningful than the ring on his finger. He hasn’t thought about it much, hasn’t had the time between grieving, adjusting, writing, despairing, but now that he’s heard Bruce say it, he wants to say it back. It hasn’t been very long since they met, hasn’t been long since they got married, but Clark has seen Bruce at his best and at his worst, and he has wanted nothing more than to stay by Bruce’s side.

“I love you,” Clark says, and it feels like a weight off his chest, like a secret he didn’t know he was keeping.

He readily accepts the kiss Bruce presses to his lips, readily gives himself to Bruce. He lets himself be pulled even closer until they’re pressed together from their lips to their torsos to their legs, tangled together. It isn’t an unchaste kiss so much as a kiss that overwhelms, demands everything that Clark has, every emotion, every bit of affection. It’s a kiss that echoes his words, a kiss that tells him that this here, with Bruce, is his place, where he wants to be and where he should be.

Clark is almost heady with it when Bruce finally pulls away, just enough that Clark can feel Bruce’s breath. Bruce’s hand is still cupped around Clark’s cheek, still pressed to the small of his back, still keeping him close.

“Children,  _ please _ ,” Bruce says, turning his head to the side slightly so Clark only catches a glimpse of the fond, long-suffering smile on his face.

Clark follows his gaze, sees the children standing there once again, sees Alfred beside them, hiding a smile behind his hand. Clark hadn’t even noticed him come back in, feels his cheeks warm with the realization that Alfred must have seen at least the tail-end of Clark and Bruce, lost in their own world.

“We did say we would come back after the commissioner left,” Richard says, no trace of sheepishness or regret in his tone, nor in his grin. The other children are just as bad, half gazing up at them in resignation, half with too-wide grins that make Clark’s chest hurt and warm at the same time.

Clark smiles, rests his cheek on Bruce’s shoulder. The children look happy. Happier than he’s ever seen them. Free, he thinks, light. There isn’t a weight on their shoulders anymore, no more darkness in their silhouettes. He knows deep in his heart that this  _ means  _ something, because Clark has only ever dealt with dark spirits before, spirits tainted with despair, burdened by death. He has never seen this—almost transparent, features lined, distinct in a way that makes them look like they’re walking paintings.

Richard’s eyes shift from Bruce to Clark, his grin settling into a smaller yet still happy smile.

“Clark,” he greets.

“Richard,” Clark says.

He looks at Damian, half-hidden behind Richard, Stephanie’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. Timothy and Cassandra on Richard’s other side, hands held together in between them. Jason and Duke huddled together beside Cassandra, hints of disgust over seeing their father kiss someone still in their faces.

“You did protect us in the end. Thank you,” Clark says. “You didn’t have to save me as well, but you did.”

“You’re part of the family now, Clark,” Richard says, and the others nod along.

The corners of Clark’s eyes sting, but he blinks away the pain, blinks away the unshed tears. For a long time, Clark’s family has only consisted of him and Ma. Lois has wormed her way into Clark’s heart the past few years, but they were still a small family. This moment here, with Bruce and Alfred and all of these children who look at Clark like he isn’t  _ other _ , isn’t just an outsider looking in—it fills Clark’s heart, makes him warm all over. He could live in this moment forever, he thinks, would be satisfied, would be happy, content.

He knows he can’t, though. He knows he won’t, because the children are ghosts, and while they have been stuck here on this earth for so many years, they’ve done what they needed to do. Now they’re free to cross over, free to rest finally. Already, they’re looking less defined than before, almost hazy, blurry in a way that Clark has to blink and blink until he realizes there’s nothing wrong with his vision.

They must know it too, because Richard says next, “Still, I feel like we’re required to say that we’ll come back and make your life a living hell if you hurt our father.”

“I’d deserve it if you do,” Clark says, and he can’t help the sadness that seeps into his tone.

He knows they’re better off moving on, knows this has been a long time coming, but he’ll miss them, just like he misses Ma and Pa. They have been his companions these past few weeks just as much as Alfred, almost as much as Bruce. The manor will feel emptier without them, but somehow, Clark thinks this will be an easier transition for him than Ma’s death was.

In the end, even if they knew it was going to happen, Ma’s death was sudden. It felt like a stab in the back, felt like the ground was falling out beneath his feet. Bruce’s children have been dead for a long time, have always wanted nothing more than to rest. They made the best of their situation, diligently and faithfully stayed with their family the entire time, but Clark has always thought of them as impermanent. He always had it in his head that he’d find a way to help them move on, and now they finally are.

For that, Clark’s relief overweighs his melancholy.

“It’s good to see you happy again, Bruce,” Richard says. “Take care of Alfred and Clark, alright?”

“I will,” Bruce promises. His hands tighten around Clark, almost as if he’s afraid he’ll reach out to the children’s fading forms otherwise. Clark can only reciprocate, can only let Bruce get his comfort from this.

“Alfie, I’d tell you to stop worrying so much, but I know that’s just how you are,” Richard says. “Just go on vacations once in a while, huh?”

“Of course, Master Richard,” Alfred says, and his voice is the shakiest it’s ever been, his face the least composed Clark has ever seen it.

Without thinking, Clark pulls a hand away from Bruce and reaches out for Alfred, pulls him closer because he needs comfort just as much as Bruce does. Alfred doesn’t need to say anything for Clark to know he appreciates it, only needs to nod and hold on tightly to the hand Clark has lent him.

Bruce, Clark, and Alfred hold each other until they’re truly alone, the only ones left in this manor full of memories.


	5. but it's alright, 'cause you love me

Clark wakes up to the sound of birds chirping outside their window and the feeling of fingertips on his side going up and down, back and forth. It’s warm; it always is. These days, Clark never wakes up to an empty bed.

“That tickles,” Clark says, his voice coming out almost as a croak.

He feels Bruce smile against his temple, feels a shiver go up his spine when Bruce’s hand shifts from his waist to the small of his back, suspiciously low.

“I know,” Bruce says, all too amused, not sorry enough.

Clark groans, opens his eyes and tries to blink away the last dregs of sleep clinging to him.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“A little after nine,” Bruce says.

It’s Saturday so it doesn’t really matter when they get up from bed, but his body aches from everything he and Bruce did last night and he’s still so tired mentally from the tail-end of editing his novel yesterday. He wants a good, long bath and a warm meal, wants to spend the rest of this day in Bruce’s arms, soaking in his warmth and basking under the sunlight streaming through the windows. Today, Clark wants to be spoiled, wants to spoil Bruce, and in this moment, that means he wants nothing more than to tilt his head upwards so he can kiss Bruce.

And so he does.

His breath is horrible and so is Bruce’s, but they’ve done this so many times after waking up in the morning that it barely even registers anymore. All Clark cares about is the feeling of Bruce’s lips against his, the way Bruce’s skin jumps under his fingers in time with his pulse. He loves the feeling of Bruce’s scruff against his skin, loves the way Bruce still faintly smells like the soap he uses when he takes a bath, loves how Bruce kisses him so tenderly, so gently, exactly the way he needs right now.

Clark pulls away on his next breath.

“Good morning. I love you,” he says, because once he’d realized it, he can’t stop saying it, can’t stop reminding Bruce of it because he loves the way that Bruce’s eyes soften, the way his lips twitch into some semblance of a smile when he hears it.

“I love you,” Bruce says, not missing a beat. He presses another kiss to Clark’s lips, just a peck, short and sweet, just because he can. Then, “Breakfast?”

“Can we take a bath after?” Clark asks.

Bruce hums. “I suppose we can, after breakfast  _ and  _ after we visit the children and my parents.”

“Sounds good,” Clark says.

Bruce pulls away, disentangles himself from Clark, which Clark appreciates because if they don’t do it now, then he might change his mind and they might never get anything done today.

“Come,” Bruce says, tugging on Clark’s arm. “I think Alfred’s making Damian’s favorite today. We can take some of it later when we visit.”

Clark looks up at Bruce, haloed by the light coming in from the window. Clark thinks, in this moment, that he really, truly would do anything Bruce asks of him, would follow him to the ends of the earth.

“Of course,” Clark says.

Of course, always.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [tumblr!](http://clqrkkent.tumblr.com/)


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